


Ersatz Edda

by larvae



Category: Norse Religion & Lore, Thor (Comics), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Asgardian Culture (Marvel), Jotunn Biology (Marvel), Jotunn Loki (Marvel), Jotunn Original Character Design, Jotunn | Frost Giant, Marvel Jotunn Culture, Multi, POV Balder (Marvel), POV Loki (Marvel), Political Alliances, Slow Burn, The Nine Realms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2019-08-05 05:16:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16361534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larvae/pseuds/larvae
Summary: "But the Norns are capricious things and their steady weaving fingers, spinning the threads of all eternity between them in a vast arachnid cat’s cradle, are unpredictable."A counterfeit myth, couched in Marvel comics' Thorverse, influenced by Norse mythology and my own barrel-aged horseshit. At the center of this web of nonsense is a Thor/Jotunn!Loki arranged marriage AU. Tags to be updated as chapters are added.





	1. Prologue - Blood Brothers

**Author's Note:**

> Please see end notes for Old Norse glossary.

They would call it the Thousand Years War, and they would be overly generous in doing so. It hadn’t been a war, not really. It had been a genocide, stopped in its tracks by powers that lorded themselves above even the gods of Asgard; the rime and hoarfrost of Jötunheimr.

King Laufey had bled men at Asgard’s hands for aeons, until the nature of his frozen realm had turned the tides of these losses. Frost giants only ever grew stronger in the cold, emboldened by the howling winds, while Asgardians withered away beneath it like a crop of shrinking violets.

Odin Allfather, may the Múspellsmegir take his rotting hide to the bottom of their burning pits, had not set out to wage a war. His thoughts had not been of conquest nor of subjugation. His thoughts had been of revenge, and he had made no secret of it as he sought to paint the barren terrain of Laufey’s realm black with jötnar blood. He was washing an old wound with the blood of a foreign people, an abscess that had festered since his youth. Hel hath no fury like a tyrant scorned.

They had fought together, Borson and Ymirson abreast across seven lesser realms; young foolhardy men fueled by bloodlust and pride and a growing resentment of their fathers. The realms had been bigger then, more malleable, as if the clay of their creation had not yet been fired, and any foot soldier brave or fool enough to try could leave his fingerprints embedded in them. Perhaps it had been a vision clouded by the temerity of youth and fed by the blood of their conquests, but together the firstborns of Asgard and Jötunheimr could feel the branches of Yggdrasill weaving wreaths ‘round their heads. The age of their fathers was coming to a close in the cresting dawn of the time just after creation. They would clothe themselves in the skins of their fallen enemies and build a palace of their shattered bones, free to shape the world anew.

But the Norns are capricious things and their steady weaving fingers, spinning the threads of all eternity between them in a vast arachnid cat’s cradle, are unpredictable.

One day while tracking beasts in the dark forests of Jötunheimr, King Laufey received word that the mad general Bor had died in battle, as befit a warlord tyrant. His eldest son had seen him taken to pieces by the wind before his very eyes, the two of them alone on a distant snowy mountain scouting enemy terrain. Failing to deliver a corpse back to Asgard, whose people were forced to wail at an empty pyre, Odin had retreated into the darkness beneath the World Tree. He had climbed onto the upper branches that stretched into the gleaming city of Asgard and crawled towards its roots with his belly pressed against the bark. He hung upside-down, his golden hair falling over his face and his nails peeling away from his fingers with the strain of holding himself perpendicular to the earth. As he shimmied down Yggdrasill, dropping further from the glittering Bifrost and the echoing cries of a grieving people, the world began to change, and the force that pulled him down began to push him up. As he crawled down the side of the Ash at the center of all things, he felt a great and terrible shift and emerged in the Nornkeep rightside-up. For nine days and nine nights the realm eternal thought that it had lost not just its Allfather but his heritor, maddened by his grief. But the dawn of the tenth day brought forth a new Odin, Borson no longer, who had sacrificed himself to himself and so become the object of his own worship. He had gazed into the waters of life and hung bleeding from the branches of the World Tree to learn of runes and seiðr and to pry his fingers between the stitches of all creation.

What Odin’s ruddy, bloated face had seen reflected in the murky waters of Urd that had possessed him to relinquish a perfectly serviceable eye, Laufey would never know. When the new reigning Allfather had come to him in his great hall, bloodied wound in his handsome face on full display, arms open wide, and belly full of laughter, the jötun King had not thought to ask. He had barked out a greeting to his old friend and stepped into his arms, ready for their great work to begin. The windswept valleys and snowy forests of Jötunheimr had been his since the blood of his father had ferried Laufey and his kin to its shores. He had spent his youth away from it, as an absent king in the company of an impetuous prince. But now that he and the Allfather’s brows boasted the same deadweight of royal responsibility it was time to put away childish things. They could move forward now with their plans to weave the Nine into a shape of their own making. Their arrows would graze against the doors of Heven and rain down into the pits of Hel. Now was the time for a great and terrible conquest, to unite their realms in siege across the Lesser Seven and beyond.

But when Laufey turned from his grand posturing scheme, announced boldly into the howling wind, he’d seen the Allfather grinning on his knee.

Their realms were to be united by a hand tying. Their dealings were to be politiced in the hall Glitnir, amid its red and gold columns, beneath its silver roof. There would be no great raging conquest, no armies risen from the snowy mountains. This was to be a new era of alliance and fidelity, brought on by the Kings of a united realm at its head.

Odin’s face had darkened to a storming fury when the firstborn Ymirson had told him nay. He was content to be his blood brother, he would not be his bride. They had spent a lifetime at each other’s sides and had taken what they wanted by the strength of their backs and the sweat of their brows. The waters of Urd must have beaten him soft, for the Borson he knew forced allegiance in blood and ash, he did not forge alliances in ink and sheepskin nor did he dwell overmuch on ceremony. This was an insult to them both.

“If you refuse my hand you refuse my friendship, and the realm eternal turns its back on Jötunheimr as it should have long ago, were it not for our misjudged boyhood dalliances,” Odin had spat angrily, rising from his knee with a hand on his hilt.

“You dare threaten me with the hand you used to pledge your honor,” Laufey had shouted back, raising his own palm towards the Æsir whose right hand bore the same old wound, cut a thousand thousand winters before this, that their blood could mix in streams of black and gold between them to forge a bond unbreakable. “I wish only to remain your equal, Borson, as I have been since the realms were first formed.”

The Allfather had denied his plea, and his turned back was the last Laufey saw of him for a hundred winters hence. 

In time he heard from the leader of a troll armada that Odin had taken himself a Vanir bride; Freya Njörðrdottir, sister to Freyr. With their marriage a peace was to be brokered between the old gods of Vanaheimr and the new gods of Asgard who had fought a bloody, futile war since before the father of Bor’s father had walked the Nine. 

Soon after, the first drakkar came to beach its hull upon the frozen shores of Jötunheimr, a dozen of its brother vessels to follow suit. The Allfather’s peacetime bride was to bear his first legitimate son, undisputed heir of Asgard. It would not befit an Odinson to be be born into an era of peace, not when Asgard’s armies were bolstered by the strength of all of Vanaheimr’s forces among them. 

As the first flaming arrow struck the icy walls of Laufey’s keep, he thought of his own wife Fárbauti, with whom he had borne two sons in the time since his brother had turned away. Perhaps, having been born in a time of plenty, Býleistr and Helblindi would cut their teeth on this new war, and be baptized in glittering fountains of Æsir blood. He took no pleasure in raising arms against the one eyed stranger so beloved to him in his youth, but Laufey swore a vow that day that the Allfather’s heart would be his until his death, ripped from his chest by his own capable hands. He would see it mounted in his feasting hall, an iron nail driven through its center that it may rot off of it until Surtur arose from the flaming pits of Muspelheimr to burn away its remains.

The wind carried his vow, but the Norns’s tangled web did not see fit to weave it so. 

The Kings’ armies bled themselves dry in stripes of black and gold across Laufey’s realm. Asgardian forces came in droves by sea or by the shining magic of the Bifrost and retreated home to their golden city to lick their wounds. Jötunheimr was bound to the east by fearsome waves that beat against black rocky shores, and to the west by mountains that scrapped against the storming heavens. Without the magic of the Bifrost and the aid of its eternal watchmen, the frost giants could not retaliate against the golden city. Laufey’s forces had no realm to retreat to as Odin’s war raged at their own doorstep. The jötnar could not advance, nor could they wield the magicks of Asgard and its embittered Allfather. But neither could they freeze to death, succumbing to the howling wind and to the storms that brought flurries of ice chips sharp as daggers. Whatever they lacked in resources and strategy they gained back in their size and in the sheer number and brutality of their armies, supported by the unforgiving elements of the home they were defending.

A third generation of gods came pouring out from Asgard to dash themselves against the jagged sea cliffs of Jötunheimr before the Allfather could see reason enough to stop his onslaught. No doubt it had been Freya’s lips that dripped this honey into Odin’s ear, as it was her neatly slanting script that wrote out a peacetime treatise, carried to Laufey’s hall by ink feathered Hugin and Munin, who nipped affectionately at Laufey’s fingers when he reached towards them, begging their old friend for scraps of meat from his table. 

_This is a fruitless effort,_ her letter had read, _the wounds that fester between two mad kings will soon swallow up the both of our peoples. These violent times must find their end, lest they usher in that of all things. I grow weary of sending my brethren off to die to fulfill this Asgardian fancy. Your majesty and my husband must set aside the poison that has brewed between you and usher in prosperity for both your realms. I write to you on his behalf and as an ambassador of Vanaheimr, an old realm that I love and that has stood stoic before this conflict for too long. I write too as reigning Allmother, and it is my honor to submit to you this missive by power of the realm eternal. May you recognize my letter for what it is: a plea to spare the realms the madness that this conflict seeks to drive them to, carried on the wings of Thought and Memory that they may bring you rhyme and reason._

 _I have no love for Vanaheimr nor love for Asgard, and no investment in the prosperity of either realm_ Laufey had written, _the hand tying of their royal lines means as little to me as the dalliances of our elven and dwarven neighbors. I would as soon swear fealty to the lawless halls of Helheimr where the dead carry out their own justice. Jötunheimr has defended itself against the slaughter raged by the mad Allfather for long enough. If his Vanir bride sees fit to broker peace between us, she will send her husband here to face me that I may lay out my terms. I shall hear his appeal in person if he is man enough to give it._

With reluctance, Laufey had tied his curt reply to Munin’s leg, and waited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jötunheimr - the realm of the frost giants, or jötnar (singular: jötunn)  
> Asgard - the realm of the gods, or æsir (singular: óss)  
> Vanaheimr - the realm of the Vanir, the old gods (singular: vanr)  
> Yggdrasil - the tree at the center of all creation, whose branches reach across all nine realms  
> Bifrost - the magical rainbow bridge that leads from Asgard to the rest of the universe  
> Múspellsmegir - a denizen of Múspellsheimr, the realm of endless flame  
> seiðr - shamanic Norse magic  
> drakkar - a Viking war ship


	2. Chapter 1 - Armistice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It was odd to break bread among giants. It had a way of cutting gods down to size."
> 
> A feast is had on Jötunheimr and a marriage is proposed to secure lasting peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Relevant content warnings
> 
> > brief mentions of physical and emotional parental abuse
> 
> Please see end notes for Old Norse glossary.

“You look awfully smug, Heimdall.”

“Only relieved, sir” Heimdall replied, smugly.

“Damn you,” Odin growled.

The Allfather stood in the watchman’s station at the end of the Rainbow Bridge, his twin ravens Hugin and Munin perched silently on his shoulders. Their incessant chatter had stopped abruptly as soon as they’d come into Heimdall’s view, their beady black eyes shiftily avoiding his gold ones. Their dealings as the Allfather’s informants were carried out across the realms on inky wings, with no need for the magic of the Bifrost to spirit them away. Just as well, as the watchman’s all seeing gaze felt stifling enough when you weren’t pinned down in front of it. The only sound in Heimdall’s golden chamber was that of their clawed feet tapping and scraping against their master’s shoulder guards in discomfort.

“It’s been a long war, your highness,” said Heimdall calmly, drumming the fingers of his left hand thoughtfully over those of his right, clasped over the hilt of the sword that controlled the bridge between realms. His voice was calm and steady, its warm rasp earned over a millennia of stoic observation. The Watchman chose his words sparingly, and spoke with a soft, even tone that added weight to each one, “I will be glad to watch peace settle over Jötunnheimr once more.”

“Surely they’ll just busy themselves with slaughtering one another,” Tyr interjected. He shifted the weight of his great battle axe over his left shoulder and sniffed into this curly black mustache to punctuate his thought.

Peace was to be negotiated on Jötunnheimr, in Laufey’s keep. Odin Allfather, king of Asgard and lord commander of all creation, was to journey to the heart of the frozen realm, beyond the sky scraping mountain peaks and the thick black forests where winter winds screamed eternal through an endless night, to the hall of the firstborn Ymirson, perched on the rocky shores of an angry sea. His firstborn son, Tyr, the god of war and commander of the combined armies of Asgard and Vanaheimr, was to accompany him. The grim expressions both wore beneath their horned helms hardly seemed… peaceable.

The eternal watchmen sighed, casting his gaze over Tyr’s stoney face. Heimdall’s eyes were bound in time, just as the eyes of any creature who had them, whether seeing, unseeing, or all-seeing. He could gaze out across every possible detail of the current moment and back through the tangled web of past happenings, but he could only see as far across the tapestry of creation as the Norns had yet woven. The scenes that its countless threads were yet to unveil were secret to him. Now, as he looked into Tyr’s dark eyes, he saw the journey they had taken to bring the young god where he stood before him. Expressions of anger and lust and betrayal all played across his face in Heimdall’s vision like shadow puppets outlined in gold.

“Enough,” said Odin, cutting short the silence that had begun to stretch between them, “open up the blasted Bifrost before I think better of this fool’s errand.”

Heimdall obliged, twisting his sword to open the bridge, sending Odin and Tyr up in a screaming beam of multicolored light that against all odds and contrary to any sense of direction would deposit them in Jötunnheimr, at the door to Laufey’s great hall, where the jötunn king sat waiting.

☆ ★ ☆

Odin and Tyr were welcomed at the gates of Laufey’s keep by two armed men who, when they had finished rubbing the stars from their eyes left by the shinning splendor of their arrival, busied themselves with lifting the iron gate and rousing the keep to tend to their guests.

It was odd to break bread among giants. It had a way of cutting gods down to size.

The average jötunn stood twice the height of any óss, and so Laufey’s keep was built to twice Asgard’s scale. A bone rattling chill lived at the heart of the heavy stones that knit together to form the long hallways, arched ceilings, and narrow embrasures mounted high above their heads. The stones were taken from the black mountains to the west and piled high near the sea. They kept within them the hopelessness of howling winds and the deadly silence that fell before the avalanches that reshaped the landscape of their merciless home. Laufey’s palace was not a shelter from his realm but a reflection of it. The Asgardians moving towards its heart drew their bearskin cloaks tighter around their shoulders.

Laufey sat at the head of his table in his great hall, lit dimly by guttering candles anchored to their places amid the cold stone by buttery pools of melting tallow. He was accompanied by his three children sitting to his right along one side of the table. To his left, two places were set for his guests. The hall was barren save for the heavily laden table at its center, and no servants were present to attend them. The jötnar were not prone to festivity in the best of times, and these times were lean. 

Laufey rose from his seat and locked eyes with Odin, who seemed to have put down roots at the entrance to his hall. He took stock of the óss he’d once known. The familiar honey-yellow of his hair had long given way to silver, and he had grown his grey beard long. His helm had changed as well, now boasting great golden stag’s horns stretching out half an arm’s length in either direction. The hole left from his missing eye was covered by a patch of gleaming gold forged to match his armor. But the armor Laufey could conjure only in his memory, as his black bearskin cloak obscured his frame and dragged along the floor. The Allfather’s remaining eye was still familiar to him; a pallid blue beneath his pale brow . It had been striking when set into the young, clean shaven face of a venturous prince. Now it sat deeper in his socket; settled into the face of a power hungry king. His twin ravens were the same as ever; unaffected by the cold and croaking low in their throats in an endless back and forth chatter understood only by the two of them.

Tyr stood behind him, stony faced, dark of eye, his thick black brows and curled mustache framing the harsh planes of his face into a grim caricature of stoicism. There was little of the Borson in him; his coloring was darker and his face was more severe, with a large, broad nose at its center that must have been his mother’s. He was half a hand taller than his father, and balanced a great axe over his left shoulder. He had removed his own helm, which sported two well polished bilgesnipe horns, and held it pressed to his right side. He was cloaked in a similar bearskin, tied tightly around his neck to keep the wind at bay.

“Well met, Asgardian,” said Laufey, dryly.

His greeting was met with a tense silence. Just as Laufey’s two eldest sons were beginning to rise from their seats in anger, the Allfather chose diplomacy.

“Well met… old friend.”

Odin watched Laufey carefully, testing the waters of this meeting with a sharp prod from a long stick. They hadn’t been friends for the last few dozen centuries, but they had certainly grown old as they had grown apart. The intricate markings carved into Laufey’s pale blue skin had faded from the brilliant pearl in Odin’s memory to a dull milky white. He wore a simple golden crown, balanced on his bare head behind two horns that curled back from his temples. His eyes were unreadable as ever, square black pupils sat ringed in gold on twin fields of scarlet, betraying nothing of what may have lain beneath their glossy surface. He wore his customary royal adornments, gold cuffs striping up his arms and legs, set with precious stones traded from passing dwarven caravans. Bands of gold ran up his horns as well, drawing attention to their knifepoint tips. 

Laufey’s eyes narrowed slightly at the provocation, apprehension shifting across his face before his features melted back into their usual regal indifference. Odin turned his attention to the king’s children, whose six red eyes were trained on him with an inherited intensity.

The eldest son, Býleistr, sat furthest from his father. Had he been first to greet them at the door, Odin would have thought it was the young king come once again to spurn his courtesies. He wore his long dark hair tied in a sensible knot behind his horns, a sharpened bone driven through its middle. In addition to his golden jewelry, he sported a great feathered collar around his shoulders, bound together across his neck by a necklace hung with dried bird’s feet.

Helblindi, seated between his two brothers, must have taken after his mother. He was shorter than his father by a hand, built stocky and low with two heavy tusks protruding from his bottom jaw. One had broken off and been capped with a point of gold. His hair was plaited down his back, falling neatly at his waist and weighed down with gold chains and well polished glass baubles.

Loki, youngest of Laufey’s brood, sat closest to his father’s side. When Odin rested his eye on him, he felt something snare into the jelly of it to keep him transfixed. 

He was small, easily Tyr’s height, and slender, his clawed feet crossed daintily at the ankles beneath the table. In addition to his moonlit jötunnn markings, his pale blue skin was criss crossed with milky white scars. His thin lips carried death’s head markings, scars pulled across them like the outlines of blunt, uneven teeth. He wore his dark hair down, spilling over his shoulders and down the slope of his back; intricate braids at his brow kept loose strands from his face. His features were sharp, like his fathers, but the bump he sported on his crooked nose had been earned by fist, not birth. He wore more jewelry than the rest of his family put together, rings stacked tall on each thin finger and gold chains weighing heavy on his neck. A circlet rounded his head and dripped a fat, well polished ruby at his widow’s peak. His horns, tall and curling back from his temples like the rest of his family’s, had gold spirals forged to fit their length and cap their tips like douters. He rested his elbows on the table and combed his neatly manicured nails through a lock of raven hair, the gold adornments plaited into it chiming softly against one another. 

Loki met the Allfather’s spellbound gaze and grinned, his wide smile revealing tar-black gums and needle sharp teeth. He stood and lay his left hand on his father’s arm, gesturing with his right towards the two empty seats across from him.

“Please, Allfather, Tyr,” he inclined his head to both of them in turn, the jewelry in his hair ringing like gentle bells, his voice an unhappy marriage between a whisper and a scream, “we’ve much to discuss, and we are honored to have you as our guests.”

Odin felt Tyr’s eyes on him, waiting to follow his lead. Wordlessly, he walked over to the place set immediately to Laufey’s left, directly across from Loki, and sat down. Hugin and Munin flew off to find their favored perch amid the rafters, the beating of their wings echoing through the chill air. As he heard Tyr follow suit and take the seat beside him, he kept his eye on Loki, whose ghastly smile remained fixed in the center of his odd face.

“You must be Loki,” said Odin coldly, “I hear tell your first breath was cut with matricide.”

“Surely Fárbauti would have found my escort to Helheimr more pleasing than what she would have had at the hands of Asgard’s finest,” Loki said calmly, with a bat of his dark lashes. His brothers stirred angrily at his flippancy, but were silenced with a glance from their father.

“And I see now that every breath you’ve taken since runs slick with it,” Odin continued, ignoring his retort.

“Surely, Borson, you did not come to avenge me for my wife’s passing,” Laufey interjected, “nor could you have come to innumerate my sons’ transgression, else I would have had rations prepared to last us through next winter.”

“Why did you come?” came Býleistr’s voice from the far end of the table, raspy and high pitched like dead leaves crushed to dust against each other.

“To taste Jötunheimr’s famous juniper ale, boy,” said Odin, keeping his eye fixed on Loki as he spoke. Loki met his gaze with an impenetrable serenity, his sly grin threatening to cleave his head in two. Frost giants didn’t blink overmuch, but he seemed not to blink at all.

“Then it breaks my heart to say that tonight, Allfather, we sip on barley wine,” he said.

“My brother is eager to dazzle the visiting warlord,” Býleistr spat, crossing his arms across his chest.

“My brother should be wary of the warlord in residence,” Loki replied, still speaking through the razor edges of his smile.

“The boy speaks true, Býleistr,” Laufey looked at his eldest, but addressed them all, “your birthright earns you nothing in my hall while I still draw breath within it, least of all a seat at this table. Watch that your tongues don’t cut short your threads.”

“Am I interrupting what should have been a family matter?” said Odin, punctuating his phrase with a cold, barking laugh, “I should happily leave you four hens to your quarrel.”

“Nonsense, Allfather,” Loki soothed, “we’ve simply whet our appetites, the better to enjoy our meal. Bread broken among friends is best eagerly devoured.” The last phrase he said with such a confident, well practiced flourish of his hands that Odin wondered if it was a jötunn proverb he’d forgotten.

“Family matters can quickly become rough seas,” he continued, turning his head at last to look very pointedly at Tyr, “they require skilled navigation.”

Loki gestured towards the center of the table where a silver dish sat piled high with roasted horsemeat, “And such journeys cannot be made on empty stomachs. I implore our guests to remedy these states of ours.”

Odin obliged him, drawing his knife from the leather sheath at his hip to serve himself. He filled his plate with horsemeat, black bread, salted cheese, dried bullaces, and fresh blackthorn sprigs. Tyr served himself next, then Laufey, Býleistr, and Helblindi, leaving Loki to pick at what remained, which he did only after filling all their glasses to the brim with barley wine. Odin wondered if it was precisely this order of seniority that had left Loki so small and narrow.

The feast was one of well salted vittles, fit for the hard and lean and reflective of the unforgiving wastes from which it was sourced. Loki kept the conversation going as darkness fell around them, amusing the gathered royal families with tales from the nine realms that ranged from cheap gossip to political intrigue. He spun a tale of darkness and deceit about the uniting of the elven realms, accomplished by a hand tying between Malekith of Svartálfaheimr and fair Queen Featherwine of Álfheimr. This ceremony, built on sharp tongues and black magicks, was contrasted by his retelling of the joyous hand tying of Odin and fair Freya, to celebrate the end of the Æsir-Vanir war that had bloodied the last age. His tale of the frozen winds of Niflheimr licking at the sputtering flames of Muspelheimr in the endless void between them was told with bawdy, ribald humor that brought tears of laughter to every grim eye at the table. And finally, when he told of empty Helheimr, the realm of the dishonorable dead, governed by no one and robed in endless, velvet night, a hush fell over the great hall so complete, that even beetle-eyed Hugin and Munin in the rafters sat listening with wrapt attention. Loki held himself with a graceful ease at the center of attention, refilling chalices in moments when laughter broke out across the table and skillfully maneuvering past his brothers’ more brutish stories without ever cutting them short. As plates began to empty and his tales found their end, a peace had settled across the table such that even stern-faced Tyr threatened to smile.

“You’ve welcomed us into your hall,” said Odin, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “fed us at your table and now have seen us in our cups.”

He looked at King Laufey, raising his half filled silver chalice, “I would continue this peace between our realms, Ymirson. Let us set aside the poison brewed between us that our people may prosper once again.”

A silence stretched between the two kings, threatening to sour the atmosphere crafted by stories and free flowing wine. The great hall echoed with the distant howling of the wind. Hugin and Munin sat deadly still in the rafters, their dark eyes turning this moment into history. Five children exchanged glances between themselves as they watched their fathers hold one another’s stares. Seconds became hours as the Norns’ threads wove together the whims of kings.

Finally, Laufey spoke, his eyes lowered to the table before him, “Aye, peace would be a fitting end to this armistice.” 

The five men at his table all huffed out a breath they hadn’t planned to hold.

“How are we to bolster this unwritten treaty, then, Borson?” asked Laufey, peering over the rim of his chalice.

“Surely if a hand tying is good enough for the Vanir and the elves, it can be good enough for the jötnar,” Odin replied. He watched Laufey tense, a fire sparking in his bright red eyes, but it was doused by the voice of his eldest son at the far end of the table.

“So we are to unite our kingdoms, then?” said Býleistr around a mouthful of bread, “have you a fair Asgardian bride for me?”

“Our kingdoms shall remain peaceably divided, boy,” said Odin patiently, “but I would see our families woven together without the burden of a throne.” He glanced at Laufey, who, through the stoney features of his unreadable face, seemed to indicate his understanding.

“Are they not already?” asked Loki thoughtfully, chewing on a hangnail. He peered across the table through his dark lashes, watching Tyr’s lips set in a hard line and his hands ball into fists. The Allfather, turned from Laufey to his youngest son, and grinned.

“You know of Hrod,” he said, cheerfully, “I’d expect no less from a viper so entwined into the roots of Yggdrasil.”

“Hrod is hardly a secret, Allfather,” said Loki, “she’s an aunt.”

“Did you know,” he said, turning to Tyr whose knuckles had gone white, “that you dined among cousins this night, War God?”

“Distant cousins,” Tyr replied, tersely. 

“Distant cousins,” Loki repeated with a solemn nod.

“You’re a viper I would keep an eye on,” Odin continued, as if Loki hadn’t just been busy picking at an open wound, “Your tales took us from Helheimr to Heven, but what know you of the Golden City?”

“Only what its king hath made its legacy,” said Loki with a flattering grin. 

“Very good, Laufeyson,” Odin sighed, “Now, what do you know of Balder the Brave?”

Loki’s expression stayed static for a moment too long as his mind whirred along without taking his face into account. Finally, after a few unsettling beats, it shifted into the same suggestion of understanding as his fathers, save for a shard of what may have been pain stuck in his crimson eyes.

“Your youngest child,” he said softly, “brother to Thor and Tyr. The golden youth of Asgard, beloved by all creation.” His words were well rehearsed, and though they were true they sounded empty, like a garland of cicada skins.

“And what claim does Balder have to the throne of Asgard?” asked Odin.

“In this moment? As much as Tyr or I.”

Odin chuckled and drained his chalice of barley wine, “Very good, Laufeyson. And would you tie your hand to his?”

All eyes turned to Loki, whose expression betrayed nothing of his decision making process. A beat, then another, but just as the silence was threatening to pull taught, Loki broke it with a bow of his head that sent his heavy jewelry into a shower of delicate chimes.

“It would be my honor, Allfather,” he said, his voice measured and low.

Odin clapped a hand against his knee and stood, Hugin and Munin descending from the rafters to alight on his shoulders. He reached his hand out to Laufey, who stood to take it.

“Then it’s settled,” he said, shaking the king’s hand, “may the peace between our realms last for longer than our children shall outlive us.”

“Aye, may the Norns weave it so,” said Laufey.

☆ ★ ☆

Kings Odin and Laufey laid out the terms of their accord well into the blackest hours of the night, their gathered children seated around them in reverent silence. Once they had bid the æsir farewell, and once Býleistr and Helblindi had retired with a grumble about the tedium of familial politics, Laufey and his youngest son sat together at the head of their table, staring down into empty cups.

“You will have a chance to meet your betrothed at Thrym’s hall when the spring crests to summer,” said Laufey.

Loki ran a finger around the lip of his drained chalice, his face blank and his eyes dark.

“The Allfather thinks a marriage will curtail your influence, but you know as well as I that it will only develop it,” he continued, “Asgard’s golden youth is put in peril by the Borson’s misplaced sentiments.”

Loki remained quiet, his eyes cast down.

“It’s as I had predicted, the old man’s gone soft in the age he’s spent bogged down in his throneroom,” said Laufey, the beginnings of a smile pulling at his thin lips, “He sits back from his wars and when he grows weary, he solves them with matrimony.” 

Laufey thought back to his youth spent at the Borson’s side, drenched in blood and wild eyed with battlelust. Of late the realms had all begun to turn rotten at the core like late summer apples; beautiful and insubstantial.

He drummed his fingers against the table thoughtfully, “They’ll think it novel to have a jötunn in Asgard. You’ll be an entertaining import to say the least. I’ve seen with my own eyes how the gods discount what they believe they’ve tamed. All the better shall your purpose work on them.”

“The royal family of Asgard is to lose a son to Jötunheimr,” said Loki quietly, in the same low tones in which he had agreed to his hand tying and bid his father-in-law to-be goodbye, “and King Laufey is to lose nothing of consequence.”

Laufey waited a beat before rising and throwing his silver cup full force into Loki’s face. The blow knocked his head back, and he threw his hands out to steady himself against the table. His jewelry rattled, delicate chains twisting into hopeless knots between his horns and into his dark hair.

Loki waited until his father’s footsteps had faded into the distance of the adjacent hall to open his eyes again.

☆ ★ ☆

Tyr and Odin stood just outside the iron gate to Laufey’s keep, pulling their bearskins tightly around their necks to guard against the howling wind. It was louder in the dead of night, and it tugged at their hair and their cloaks like a forceful lover. Odin’s twin ravens chattered back and forth, their throaty little exclamations carried away into the velvet night to drown in the roar of the black sea.

The Allfather seemed very pleased with himself.

“You would tame a viper by having it bite the hands of others,” said Tyr over the wind, “Asgard’s golden youth will be befouled by this jötunn poison.”

“You raise your voice in matters you know nothing of,” Odin replied, unbothered. There was no doubt that by now Heimdall had seen them waiting to be carried home. Whatever gave that damnable watchmen the gall to leave his Allfather out in the bitter night of Jötunheimr’s late winter, he’d have it cut out of him by morning.

“What of Prince Thor?” Tyr persisted, “surely it will raise suspicion to knit Balder’s hand into alliances before his? And to settle so great a war without him? To act before he sits the throne?”

“And would your bastard’s arse had warmed it for him had I married you off this night?” Odin could feel ice freezing over his pale lashes.

“I have n-“ Tyr began, with a wounded expression.

“Were you not welcomed in my hall before my wife and children? Were you not trained, educated, coddled, and made welcome nightly at my table?” Odin turned to face his firstborn son, the flush that anger brought to his cheeks melting some of the frost that had formed over them, “And does this marriage unsettle you still?”

“I speak out of concern for a kingdom I have pledged my life to protect,” said Tyr, the icicles weighing down the ends of his curled mustache and muffling his speech, “my objection lies with the future of the realm eternal, which I see you casting into peril.”

“Balder,” said Odin, testily, “is beloved across the realms, and holds no rights to the throne of Asgard. Loki has in equal measure beleaguered and beguiled his way through those same nine to sow his influence, in service to the throne of Jötunheimr but with no hopes to sit it. Has there ever been a union between two youngest sons with nets cast so far and wide? This is a pact made to secure their influence, that they may both be kept at bay.”

He turned to cast his eye towards the dark heavens, “I would tie Loki to Asgard to curtail his mischief and to unite our family with Laufey’s clan. He has no fondness for the boy but he’ll preserve this peace of ours to secure his assets.”

“Then you lead Balder as a lamb to slaughter,” said Tyr.

Odin’s reply was drowned out by the roar of the Bifrost cloaking them in its impossible light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> óss - a god of Asgard  
> bilgesnipe - a fictional creature indigenous to Marvel's Asgard  
> douter - a candle snuffer  
> Helheimr - the realm of the dishonorable dead  
> bullace - a thorny shrub or small tree of the rose family that bears purple-black fruits; a wild plum  
> blackthorn - a flowering plant that bears a fruit called a "sloe" in the Autumn  
> Niflheimr - the frozen realm  
> Muspelheimr - the flaming realm, ruled by Surtur


	3. Chapter 2 - Thrym's Hall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Dear Loki,_ he wrote, his goose feather quill scratching against the hundredth length of vellum he had devoted to the task, _I take great joy in the news of our marriage. It is my hope that the peace between our realms will far outlive even the children of our children’s children. I await our meeting with great anticipation, and wish to make you happy from this day onwards to eternity. Our duty shall be not only to our realms, but to each other. Signed with the greatest of affection, Balder the Brave, son of Odin and the realm eternal._
> 
> An engagement feast is held on Jötunheimr, at Thrym's hall.

It was nearing the end of Einmánuður when soft, pale sunshine reflected over Jötunheimr’s everlasting snowbanks to threaten summer. Asgard’s royal family arrived in the middle of a snowy field, carried in the Bifrost’s glittering splendor. For a moment, the five æsir stood still, the sudden chill of the air biting harshly at what little of their skin was bared to meet it.

The Allfather was the first to move, sending his twin ravens ahead to announce their arrival and taking a confident stride to the west. His three children followed with the Allmother trailing behind. No words were exchanged as they walked the last half mile to Thrym’s great hall. Young Balder thought to himself that any attempt to break the silence would have left the chosen phrase suspended from his lips, dangling in a chain of frozen shards.

Odin and Laufey had decided on a feast to publicly announce the peacekeeping betrothal of their youngest sons, to be held at the palace of a distant jötunn relation: Thrym. Thrym was as well a son of Ymir, though further down the line of succession than would grant him birthrights of any consequence. He was a proud giant, and saw himself as a self made man, building his frozen keep far to the North of Laufey’s castle by the sea to tower at the edge of Jötunheimr’s black forests, at the cusp of endless night. His clandestine dealings across the realms had left him extraordinarily wealthy and extraordinarily disliked. Laufey had had no doubt of his eagerness to host the occasion in favor of piecing together the tatters of his reputation. Formal invitations had been sent out across the realms, save to lawless Helheimr, where the dishonorable dead kept their own peace.

Balder the Brave clasped his hands together against the wind and thought for the dozenth time since daybreak that he would rather meet his husband to-be in any way other than this. When Tyr and Odin had returned from their dealings at Laufey’s hall some weeks past, his older brother had not shared his father’s triumphant enthusiasm for this marriage. His dark eyes had grown stormier than usual, and he had dropped his great battle axe heavily to the floor when the Allfather finished his announcement. It was not unusual for the two of them to quarrel publicly, so Balder had thought little of it. He had retired to his chambers for the rest of the day to write a letter to his betrothed.

_Dear Loki,_ he wrote, his goose feather quill scratching against the hundredth length of vellum he had devoted to the task, _I take great joy in the news of our marriage. It is my hope that the peace between our realms will far outlive even the children of our children’s children. I await our meeting with great anticipation, and wish to make you happy from this day onwards to eternity. Our duty shall be not only to our realms, but to each other. Signed with the greatest of affection, Balder the Brave, son of Odin and the realm eternal._

He had tied his message to Munin’s leg and paid for its delivery with a strip of salted venison. As the weeks passed without a response, he began to suspect the damnable bird had deemed his bribe to be insufficient. However, with only a fortnight to go before their meeting, Balder spied a magpie at his window. With a chirp and a beating of its monochrome wings, the little bird had gone just as quickly as it had come, dropping a parcel in its wake. It had been a sprig of mistletoe and a whortleberry branch, tied together with a fine silk ribbon. Balder held the bouquet gently to his lips and imagined the delicate leaves to be the mouth of his betrothed, who he now imagined as a man of few words but clear sentiment.

He emerged from his fond reverie just as the doors to Thrym’s hall were being opened for the æsir party. On the other side, they were greeted by the giant himself, grinning broadly.

Thrym was a heavyset jötunn, built stout and low with a thick belly grown fat on black bread and dark ale. The intricate markings along his broad body shown like pearl inlay against his sea-glass blue skin. His smile was wide, pulled wider by the four great tusks that curled up from his bottom jaw like a wild boar’s. Each was fit with polished gold bands studded with precious stones that glittered in the emerald torchlight of his entryway. Balder noted, while trying to keep his face placidly composed and his eyes from wandering too pointedly, that the horns at Thrym’s temples had been filed down nearly flat against his forehead, which accentuated how far back his hairline had receded. What was left of his dark hair was kept in a well oiled knot at the base of his thick neck.

Allfather Odin took his hand when he reached for his, and smiled tersely when he knelt to clap an enormous hand against his shoulder.

“Welcome, brother,” Thrym boomed, in a voice like a birch tree bursting from the midwinter chill, “may your family see my humble home as an extension of your own.”

He turned, still bent low, and offered a curled index finger to Lady Freya, who graciously laid her hand on it, finding that she could barely cover his bent knuckle. Deepening his bow, Thrym pressed his massive lips to her delicate fingers.

Straightening up, Thrym turned his attention to her three sons, already loosening the clasps of their cloaks in the warmth of his hall. He offered his hand to dark eyed Tyr, who took it with a stare just on the wrong side of courtesy. To the flaxen haired heir apparent he offered a deferent inclination of his head and received a dazzling smile in return. When he fixed his red, square pupiled eye on the youngest Odinson, it was done with knife blade scrutiny.

“You must be Balder,” he said, extending his hand, “I extend my welcome to you, and to every member of your line across the branches of your family tree. May your union with my youngest nephew be a blessed one.”

“I am honored to accept your courtesies, sir,” said Balder, reaching out to shake Thrym’s index finger and hoping his voice didn’t break forcing its way through his dry mouth, “May I call you uncle?”

Thrym’s laugh roiled through the hall like distant thunder, and the force of his jovial hand clapped against Balder’s back nearly knocked the young óss’ feet out from under him.

“That you may, young Balder,” he said, before turning to lead the royal family into the great dining hall, where the other guests sat waiting.

“We bid welcome to the realm of Vanaheimr, and to the Allfather of the realm eternal that rules above us all,” Thrym announced as he stepped through the archway. 

Their host’s dining hall was massive. Tall arched ceilings of glossy black stone towered so far above the æsir’s heads as to grow blurry in the distance. Enchanted emerald flames danced in the iron sconces dotted along the walls, casting their eerie light across the gathered parties. Benches were arranged in a wide horseshoe around the center table, which stood empty and expectant before its guests. The royal family of Jötunheimr sat along the right side of the head of the table, King Laufey seated closest to the center with his three children at his side. Loki sat immediately to his father’s right, his many gold adornments glittering in the torchlight. 

Balder was so struck at the sight of his betrothed that his mouth fell open, and he scrambled to shut it before anyone noticed. Loki was smaller than his kin, easily Tyr’s height, and beautiful in a way that Balder lacked the words to describe. He wore a marital wreath of fiercely violet belladonna woven around his head, with stray blooms plaited into his raven hair. His was a sharp, jagged beauty; a beauty that went against the grain of nature. The fat, finely cut ruby at his widow’s peak gave the appearance of a third scarlet eye in the middle of his head. Balder thought, for a cruel and fleeting moment, that the sharp featured face of his betrothed, set against a mane of dark, flowing hair, was not unlike a spider sitting in the middle of a web of delicate gold chains. When Loki turned to him, his gold rimmed eyes were cold, and his scarred lips were set in a hard line.

Four places were set to Thrym’s left for the royal family, with representatives from across the realms seated along either leg of the U-shaped benches. 

Following Thrym’s lead, the royal family of Asgard took their places at the head of the table, with Tyr taking the open seat immediately to their left. What little tense conversation had filled the hall before the Allfather’s arrival had turned to cotton-mouthed silence, with only the soft crackle of flames to fill it.

Thrym, seemingly oblivious to the disquiet flooding the room, reached across behind Laufey to put a hand on Loki’s shoulder as he sat down at the head of the table, directly at the center of the two royal families.

“Put your silver tongues to work, boy,” he encouraged, “I would have you spin a yarn to open this feast.”

Loki stood, and smiled graciously at his uncle.

“You honor me, uncle,” he said, in a voice like the third echo fading off a cavern wall, “as do you all, denizens from across the Nine, come to share in the joy and the joining of our two families; may they be joined as one to usher in a peace everlasting, that it may outlive even the children of our children’s children.”

Balder felt something catch in his throat as he heard Loki quote his letter. To think his words, edited a thousand times over across a hundred miles of vellum, had left enough of an impression on his husband-to-be that he would use them now before the assembled realms. It felt like a wink, a nod, a brush of his elegantly decorated fingers against his own. He realized, now, in a way more real and immediate than the way he had realized a thousand times before, that this strange creature with witchcraft on his ruined lips was to be his husband; their hands tied for as long as the Norns were to weave their golden threads. Balder the Brave, beloved by all creation, felt himself bewitched.

Loki turned to Balder and gave a subtle inclination of his head, his heavy gold jewelry erupting into melodious chimes as he did so. Balder stood, eyes locked with his betrothed, his fingertips on the table before him as his voice echoed in well practiced courtly tones.

“May our duties be not only to our realms, but to each other,” he said, hoping that he was quoting his own letter correctly, and that the jötunn seated four places to his right could feel their sincerity. Loki’s gold rimmed eyes were unreadable.

Thrym clapped his great hands together and stood, spreading his arms to gesture at the gathering before him.

“Fine words from our fair princes,” he boomed, “and I shall venture to extend my own thanks to my honored guests. Less eloquent than my nephew’s, I am certain, but no less sincere.”

Balder sat back onto the bench inelegantly as Thrym launched into his speech, earning him a playful kick to the shin from Thor, seated to his right, separating him from the Allfather. Drumming his fingers against the horned helm he’d let rest on the table, Balder gave his brother a pained look and received a wink for his troubles. Asgard’s golden youth remained untroubled, in this and all other matters. Thor’s encouraging grin, punctuated by a scratch at his ruddy blonde stubble and a sidelong glance to the youngest Laufeyson, bolstered Balder’s spirits.

Thrym droned on, providing the names and titles of each guest in attendance and spinning what Balder suspected were speedily fabricated tales of their achievements. In truth Balder had enough experience at court to recognize that the gathered party was on the leaner side of meager. There were two dwarves sent from Niðavellir who stood at half the height of any óss and so a fourth the height of any jötunn. This difference in scale was resolved with a half dozen finely embroidered cushions stacked beneath each. Twice as startling was the size of the two Pit Spiders sent from the frozen realm of Niflheimr, who, seated between the dwarves and dark eyed Tyr, had to carefully arrange all sixteen of their legs to fit into the space allotted to them. Two flaming denizens of Mùspellheimr sat at the far end of the table, which had been enchanted to safeguard against their molten constitutions. The United Elven Realms had declined to send a representative, and Midgard, having long shut its doors to the affairs of gods and giants, had not responded to its invitation.

Once Thrym had made his round of the table he turned to introduce Balder’s lady mother, Freya, Allmother of the Realm Eternal. He bowed low and complemented her three æsir children. Balder tried to catch Thor’s eye again but couldn’t, and so was left to wonder what lurked beneath their jötunn host’s kind words. There was a jagged edge to his booming voice that suggested it wasn’t carelessness. The Lady Freya took Thrym’s speech in stride, smiling politely where appropriate, and giving him the full attention of her sparkling green eyes.

Finally, Thrym turned to address his kin, and with their eight gold rimmed eyes turned towards their host, Balder was able to turn his attentions onto them. Properly this time. Býleistr sat at the far end of the table, the spitting image of his father, his plumed mantle shinning beneath the enchanted emerald torchlight. To his left sat Helblindi, the gold cap at the end of his left tusk pulling Balder’s eye away from the broad, heavy features of his face. King Laufey, seated to Thrym’s right, wore a grim royal expression that reminded Balder of the war god Tyr, with his unreadable eyes and brooding brows. As they listened to Thrym’s flattery, every member of Jötunheimr’s royal family looked to have gulped down the bitter dregs of their barley wine. Every member save for Loki, who had his pointed chin propped up on his delicately folded hands, his sharp face turned up towards his uncle in wrapt delight.

Balder watched his betrothed’s thin lips pull into an easy grin as he listened to the praise lavished on his brothers. He idly spun a ring just above the first knuckle of his right index finger, and Balder watched transfixed as the three polished gems laid into the band made their rounds.

“He’s got a needling beauty,” said Thor under his breath, leaning back to sit closer to Balder but keeping his head turned to fix his eyes on the youngest Laufeyson, “gets under your skin a bit.”

“I’ll not have you speak unkindly,” said Balder, defensively.

“Was I being unkind?” Thor asked innocently, rubbing the ruddy blonde stubble on his jaw.

“Ungallantly, then,” Balder hissed, returning his brother’s kick to the shin. Loki must have heard the shuffle of their exchanged words because he inclined his extravagantly adorned head in their direction. Balder flashed what he hoped was a carefree smile. His betrothed’s eyes remained glassy and serpentine, but his face seemed to soften. Or else it was a trick of the torchlight.

Thor had taken the news of his engagement well, clapping a hand cheerfully against Balder’s back and announcing that they must hunt down a boar to mark the occasion. Though his brother’s support was treasured, it also set Balder’s mind ill at ease. Thor was heritor to all nine realms, destined to become the Allfather as his father had, and his father before him. Charming though he was, a skilled tactician and a fearsome warrior, Thor had no head for matters of state, brushing off his courtly responsibilities and leaving them to Gentle Balder to navigate. It troubled the young óss how quickly the Thunderer’s opinion of the clan of Ymir was swayed. Some very short weeks ago he had gone off to Jötunheimr and returned with Mjölnir blackened at his hip, and now he sat happily in a jötunn hall preparing to sip on barley wine and juniper ale, noting the elegance with which Loki had plaited his belladonna wreathes into his hair. Balder worried that his brother’s flippancy would soon evolve from a boyish facet of his roguish charm to a sincere threat to the safety of the realms he was sworn to protect. He thought again of the gravity of this engagement, and the responsibility it placed on two young princes. His mouth felt dry.

Thrym concluded his speech with a flourishing bow, bending at the waist until his broad nose nearly brushed the table in front of him. Balder could see the hall exchanging glances to see whether or not they should clap. Their indecision was short lived. Thrym rolled back up with none of the expected difficulty of a giant his age and clapped his great, heavily ornamented hands together twice. Faintly, one could hear the icicles snapping off of the outside of his dining hall and falling to the snow covered earth like a shower of knives.

The many servants of Thrym’s hall took their cue immediately, pouring in from the adjoining corridors to load the table at its center until it threatened to give way. Gold and silver platters sat piled high with roasted game, hunted in the forests of Jötunheimr and fired with aromatic herbs, dried and carried to the frozen wastes from warmer climes. Great, ferociously pink fish pulled from the icy black sea lay staring at the ceiling with empty gold eyes, each glittering orb easily the size of King Laufey’s head. Thick grey loaves of freshly baked barley bread sat beside plates piled high with bilberries, plums, freshly picked bullaces, and saucers of hawthorn berry jam. At the center of the table was an ornately crafted silver dish, set with precious stones and coronation scenes carved into panels of unicorn horn. It held a rich black pudding made to Svartalfheimr’s standard and sent by the United Elven Realms as an engagement gift. Strong, golden mead was brought in great barrels from Vanaheimr, where the finest honey in all the Nine went into its making.

Thrym’s hall was a place in which times were never harsh nor lean. His guests needed no further prompting, they fell upon the feast before them as soon as it was set down.

Balder pulled meat off his dagger and drank spiced wine from his chalice, feeling more and more at home among the festivities. Thrym’s icy hall seemed in this moment not unlike any of those which lay in his father’s keep where óss and vanr broke their bread. It seemed so natural to him now to see giants engaged in the same. A band of goblin musicians played from the far corner of the hall, and the air came alive with their cheerful melodies. These were soon joined by the buzz of a table warming to the thought of casual conversation. Amid the flutes, drums, and panpipes of the motley musicians, Balder spied a small knock kneed, pigeon toed troll at the center of the merry band, strumming a lyre whose sheep gut strings were stretched over a great horned skull of a creature unknown to him.

Meat, mead, and melodies soften the hardest of hearts, and Balder watched as Thrym’s hall underwent a thaw. King Laufey, dead eyed ruler of Jötunheimr, sat with his father, lord of all creation, their heads bent together as they whispered with their lips brushing the rims of their silver cups. Freya, his lady mother, was leaning over Tyr to chat amicably with the two enormous Pit Spiders; one of her elegant hands resting against a great, furry black leg closest to her as if it were the shoulder of an old friend. Young Balder cast his gaze across the table to where Loki sat, his two older brothers visible over his great gilded head. Loki ate delicately, nibbling at a slice of bread topped with jam and butter, his sharp features arranged into a well practiced expression of noble peace. He had a royal air to him that his brothers did not, and bore the signs of a young man practiced at holding court. The jötnar were a warring people, with little say in the matters of their sister realms, but the youngest Laufeyson’s influence had grown regardless. His silver tongues had woven his laurels at elven, dwarven, and even troll and goblin courts, sowing the seeds of jötunn interests among other personae non grata across the nine.

That was sure to change, now. Where Loki once held sway perched on the ledge of an exiled realm, his balance was now sure to be offset.

Balder’s too. Balder the Brave, the Bold, the Beloved was soon to be crowned the beleaguered, beguiled, besotted. The rumors had already started, long before he’d lain eyes on his betrothed. Asgard’s throne falls to jötnar influence! The Allfather leads his youngest son to slaughter! Were the black halls of Laufey’s dark keep so flooded with conspiracy? Did the jötnar concern themselves with matters of court? Was it naïve or blatantly insulting that Balder had to wonder if they did?

Balder had never known a life outside of courtly responsibility. He had been tasked to supplement Thor’s disinterest in stately affairs since he was a child. The Allfather’s youngest son, a compendium of Asgardian summers, with laughing hazel eyes inherited from his vanr mother, had been the balm to follow Odin’s ire and the diplomacy to supplement his might. Loki had been a child of war and grew to be charming in spite of it. Balder was born into warm goat’s milk and spiced honey wine, destined to the influence the Laufeyson had fought for. He felt guilt curdle in him stomach at the thought.

Balder thought of the treaty he had negotiated for this past winter, to secure safe trade routes through goblin controlled territory along the sea cliffs of Niðavellir. The travel had been arduous but the talks had been fruitful. His hosts had been gracious and all parties had left the table with plenty gained to balance out their concessions, the young Odinson had made sure of it. But had his reason truly won that day? Was it his skill that had guided his negotiation or the threat of his family name? 

A clatter to his left from the flaming denizen’s of Mùspellheimr snapped Balder’s attentions back to the present moment. He refocused his eyes to find the crowd seated at the table had thinned. Kings Laufey and Odin were holding up the wall, their heads bent together beneath a sconce of enchanted emerald flame. Only four of their children remained, both Thor and Tyr having excused themselves at some point during Balder’s reverie. His betrothed, conjured up from the center of his daydreams, seemed to be returning to his seat just as Balder looked back at him, catching his eye as he lowered himself onto the bench and giving the young prince a conspiratorial wink. _Don’t let them know_ , was laced into the toss of his raven hair. Know what? Did it matter? Balder’s heart raced for a moment at the thought that before the evening drew to a close, they might sneak away that Loki could tell him.

Just as he was summoning up the courage to venture over to the right side of the table’s head, he felt Thrym’s massive hand clap over his shoulders. The jötunn’s fingers rested easily over the full breadth of his back, his long black claws curling over the prince’s arm.

“Where have your dear brothers wandered off to, sweet nephew?” Thrym hummed above his head, “Seems an ill wind through my hall to have two war minded æsir prowling the length of it.”

Before Balder could think of a sufficiently diplomatic answer, his host had moved down the table to direct the same question to his lady mother. Thrym seemed in high spirits, but it was unwise for Thor and Tyr to wander off together. No matter how innocent their conversation, it would not be presumed as such. Already Balder was not the only one to note their absence, and the longer it stretched on the more it would be whispered over. The gods of war and thunder had, not so many weeks past, painted the snow banks black with jötunn blood. Now was a delicate time, the start to a tentative thaw. It would be a rare and momentous bit of folly for his brothers to ruin it _now_ , when it could hardly have been said to have begun at all.

Though the sticking of his courage to the sticking place had been interrupted by their host, Balder had not lost his mettle. With a steadying, determined breath, he pushed himself up from the table and carried his half drained glass two dozen paces to his right, to sit beside his recently reappeared betrothed. Loki sat staring dreamily into the middle distance, tracing the pad of his middle finger along the wet rim of his chalice. Balder cleared his dry, constricted throat, and watched as Loki’s serpentine eyes turned to meet his own.

“May I refill that for you?” he croaked.

The Laufeyson smiled, his thin lips pulling up to reveal needle sharp teeth and pitch black gums. He placed his cup down on the table and, framing the stem with his middle and ring finger, slid it across the table towards Balder.

“You would do me an honor, Odinson,” he purred.

Balder reached for a flagon of barley wine and filled his glass, keeping his eyes cast down towards his task and scrambling to think of something to fill the silence that would stretch after its completion. Loki relieved him of his burden.

“Quite the guest list we’ve managed to attract,” he said snidely.

“Not the finest of the nine,” said Balder, laughing with more force than the comment warranted, “but surely a reflection of our birthrights.”

“Does my lord Balder find his lacking?” Loki quipped.

“He finds it happy among present company,” Balder parried, “And I meant only that the realms sent a reflection of what they thought to gain.”

Loki made a sound low in his throat like dead leaves falling against late winter frost, “What a shrewd assessment of our engagement, Odinson.”

“Shrewd but not unkind,” said Balder, bolstered by the way Loki’s finger had returned to the rim of his glass, by how his raven hair fell over his shoulder as he leaned towards him, “Asgard has, after all, sent all that it has.”

Balder couldn’t read the flutter that passed over Loki’s odd face as he said it, his features seemed to light up separately, like a disturbed swarm of fireflies. How had those serpent eyes ever seemed cold or uncaring? They shone like fresh blood in the enchanted torchlight, and Balder felt himself drawn into their depths. The young prince found his thoughts interrupted once again by a jötunn hand at his back, eclipsing his broad shoulders. It was a transparent but effective tactic, and as Helblindi and Býleistr sat themselves down on either side of the intended, Balder felt quite small.

“You do us an honor with your patronage, lord Balder,” said Býleistr over his shoulder, his icy breath spilling down the side of Balder’s neck as he loomed over him.

“It is you who honor me with yours,” said Balder, “allow me to pour my brothers some wine.”

“So we are _brothers_ then,” Býleistr purred, “I had grown so used to being fodder for the Asgardian hordes. To meet an óss who caters to the game with which he stocks his woods is a rare honor.”

“Could we expect the same kindness from lord Thor?” Heldblindi grunted from over Loki’s shoulder, beleaguering the point. Balder saw Loki’s face change again at the sound of his brother’s name, pulled from its practiced composure into the same bustle of fireflies. In fact, if it weren’t for the enchanted emerald glow throughout the hall that called such things into question, Balder could almost swear he saw his cheeks flush.

“We are all of us here to atone for the blood spilled between us,” Balder said evenly, taking up the thorny subject, “had my brothers and I not waged our father’s war against you we would not be here to remedy it. Our blood was spilled across Jötunheimr and now our bloodlines will begin their joining, that the rift between our peoples can be mended.”

Býleistr made a disgusted sound halfway between a spit and a hiss, “By the shining threads you even _sound_ like one another.”

“We revel in your approval, dear brother,” said Loki calmly, holding Balder’s gaze from beneath his dark lashes. He shrugged out from Helblindi’s grip on his shoulders and stretched to take the silver flagon that Balder had set between them. As Loki refilled the three chalices around him, he raised his head to watch the opposite end of the table.

“If you wish your concerns addressed by those you raise them against, I believe you’ll now have your chance,” he said. Balder watched Helblindi and Býleistr snap to attention, their enormous horned heads spinning to follow Loki’s gaze, an animal fear rising in their cold red eyes. The young prince turned as well to find Tyr leading Thor back to his place at the table, a hand planted firmly on the back of his neck. Thor’s face was flushed with too much mead, golden wisps of hair plastered across his cheeks. Balder felt his own face burn as his brother was muscled back into this seat, turning to the other end of the table to wink a twinkling blue eye in his direction. _Norns…_

Thrym’s thunderous baritone filled the hall and the merry band of troll and goblin musicians stopping their playing abruptly and discordantly to accommodate his announcement, “Wonderful! The night grows dark around us fair friends. Let us gather to present our young princes with their engagement gifts.”

_Engagement gifts?_ Balder thought as the gathered parties began rising from their seats. He hadn’t expected there to be any for the announcement of the marriage of two youngest sons. Perhaps the represented realms had more to gain from this union than he first thought. The heavy-laden table at the center of the hall had been vanished to make room for the assembled guests to line up and present their gifts. Thrym made his way towards the right side of the table where the four princes were seated. Balder and Loki rose to meet him, Loki’s heavy gold jewelry chiming against itself like freezing rainfall as he stood. The old jötunn took their hands into his own and lead them to the center of the table, sitting them down and pressing their hands together at its center. Loki’s slim fingered, spider-like hand rested softly over Balder’s tanned and calloused skin. The cold metal of his stacked rings and layered bracelets was interrupted by the soft, smooth skin of his palm through which Balder could almost feel his black lifeblood pumping. He felt a fluttering pulse in their intwined fingers beat against his own.

Thrym loomed behind them as the royal families resumed their places at the head of the table and their guests lined up before them. For the first time that evening, Balder could feel the weight of so many eyes resting on him. Loki’s hand draped over his did little to lessen the load on his shoulders.

“Thanks are due to the United Elven realms, whose blood pudding graced our table,” Thrym boomed, “and to the sun soaked realm of Vanaheimr whose fine mead filled our drinking horns this night.” The giant inclined his head to Lady Freya, who raised her glass in recognition.

“But we have more gifts to bestow on our young princes before this night is through. From the rocky realm of Niðavellir, I am honored to present Brokkr and Sindri.”

The two dwarves stepped forward with their shining gifts, forged in gold in the dark heart of their gem filled mountains. The first, with a red beard oiled and brushed to shine as brightly as his bare head, came forth with a great golden boar. The beast was over twice his height, every coarse hair on its great body glittering in the enchanted torchlight, its eyes bright pinpricks in its shining face like stars against the midday sun.

“This creature,” the dwarf announced proudly, “is called Gullinbursti. Its hide gives off a light brighter than any star, and it will light your way through the darkest night, the deepest cavern, or the blackest sea. It will run faster than any steed could carry you, even through water or through air. It is our honor to present our gift to you, Prince Balder the Bold, shining youth of Asgard.”

Both dwarves bowed low, and the boar, proving clever as well as bright, put forward a cloven hoof to bend its great tusked head towards the floor. Balder tried very hard to shut his mouth, which had fallen open as soon as the creature had been brought forward. When he spoke, his heavy tongue stammered through his words, “It is my honor to accept it,” he managed, “may Gullinbursti’s hide speak to the future that our realms will share.”

He felt Loki tap his fingers gently over the back of his hand as he chuckled. Balder felt his cheeks flush as he snuck a glance to his betrothed. Loki winked at him.

The second dwarf, whose wirey red beard was braided down to his potbelly, stepped forward with a great gold ring in his hands. It seemed to bend the torchlight that reflected from it into glistening petals in the air.

“This, Prince Loki, we call Draupnir,” he said, raising the ring up to the level of his eyes, “From this ring, on every ninth night from this night, eight new gold rings of equal weight and splendor will emerge.”

Loki looked enraptured. Balder felt his fingers twitch against his hand unwillingly as they itched to reach for it. They’d certainly picked a gift well suited to its recipient, Balder thought, passing his eyes again over the maddening criss cross of jewelry over Loki’s body.

“You honor me greatly,” he said, lowering his eyes demurely, “your craftsmanship is unparalleled.”

Damn, no attempt at wit, and sincerity over flattery. Balder felt himself bested. The dwarves took their final bows and then took their leave, leaving their precious gifts on the table before the young princes. Gullinbursti, too clever and well mannered to attempt to clammer up beside Draupnir, arranged his hooves daintily beneath his great frame and sat on the floor. Seated so, Balder was able to reach a hand over the table to ruffle the gold bristles at the top of his head. It felt like passing his hand through sunbeams filtered through the boughs of a forest overhead. The boar snuffled good naturedly in response.

Next were the Pit Spiders of Niflheimr, who approached single file in order to fit their great mass of limbs between the U-shaped bench. The first, in a voice that seemed to emerge from somewhere in its massive many-eyed head that Balder couldn’t be sure was its mouth, spoke to Loki.

“Sweet prince,” it intoned, bringing one of its legs forward towards the table, “it would honor us, were you to wear this veil at your hand tying. We have woven it in spider silk, a treasure to us more precious than gold.”

Draped over the creature’s extended leg was a silvery white veil, its gossamer threads woven together like steam rising from a fire, trapping the light of a waning moon in their weft. The spider lowered it onto the table beside Draupnir, where it pooled like a spoonful of mist.

“Its beauty is unmatched,” said Loki graciously, “and it would be my honor to wear it.”

The spider bent his body low towards the ground and shuffled back to make room for its brother, carrying a dagger in its hanging fangs. The creature lowered its head to the table to place the weapon in front of Balder hilt first.

“To Lord Balder we present a dagger forged of spider’s silk and tempered with spider’s venom,” it said, its voice echoing out from its head in the same eerie detached way as its brother’s.

“It would be my honor to carry it,” said Balder, picking it up in his left hand. The balance of it was divine. He could get lost in the way the torchlight shone off the tempered silk, folded in on itself a thousand thousand times in the icy blue flames of an eternally frozen realm.

The spiders, having given their works, made of the most precious parts of their selves, took their leave. The flaming denizens of Mùspellheimr had brought nothing but their empty bellies, and having filled them, fled cackling and crackling from the hall.

The night thus adjourned, it came time for the royal families to take their leave. They gathered in Thrym’s entrance hall, their jötunn host poised to hold open the great oaken doors shielding them from the billowing frost. Odin and Laufey, who had kept their heads bent low and their voices hushed for the duration of the feast, stood side by side at the mouth of the hall. Balder stood by the door with his spidersilk sword at his hip and Gullinbursti on a bilgesnipe leather lead, looped over his great shining head and attached to an iron bit slipped between his heavy tusks. The creature snuffled peaceably at his lady mother’s hand. Thor stood to his left, his red dragonhide cloak fastened back around his shoulders and the drunken blush now vanished from his cheeks. He gave Balder a sheepish but wholly unapologetic smile.

“Your courtship is to last through the summer months,” Odin announced. His messenger ravens were back on his shoulder, murmuring to one another from either side of his great grey head. The great gilded antlers of his helm sprouted up to reach King Laufey’s lower ribs; but only just.

“You will be welcomed at my court through Haustmánður, prince,” said King Laufey, his glassy red eyes fixed on Balder.

“It would be my honor to attend,” Balder replied politely.

“As it would be my honor to host you,” said Laufey, the cold dead ice of his voice sitting in sharp contrast to the crystalized honey of his words.

“And it will be _your_ honor to be welcomed at my court, in the realm eternal, through Gormánður,” Odin barked at Loki, “you are to be wed at the equinox.”

“I’m humbled by such accolades, Allfather” said Loki, punctuating his words with a waist-deep bow.

Balder sensed movement at his side and saw Thor brushing past him, closing the distance between himself and the youngest Laufeyson in two long strides. The Thunderer took Loki’s hand, extended outwards in a flourish, and pressed his heavily adorned fingers to his lips.

The blow struck by the gesture was as violent as his touch was tender. Balder watched as flames rose in his father’s eye and as Laufey’s stern face set into a merciless scowl. Býleistr and Helblindi’s cruel mouths hung open in surprise. Balder shut his eyes and cursed his brother for a carousing fool, not daring to turn and and face the disapproval on his mother’s face. Loki seemed frozen. He stared down at the Thunderer’s face pressed to his black clawed fingertips with his thin lips gently parted and his red eyes blown wide.

“May the Norns weave kindly until our threads entwine again, brother,” Balder heard Thor whisper.

“May their stitches be swift,” the Laufeyson managed. 

“And may they weave it so for us all,” Balder called out, forcing cheer into his trembling voice. Neither his brother nor his betrothed turned to hear him, nor did anyone else gathered in the newly frosty entrance hall. The tension stretched through the air like catgut threatening to burst, the uncomfortable silence broken only by Gullinbursti’s heavy breaths. Balder felt his frantic heart beat thrice before he watched Thor lift his head from Loki’s hand.

Thrym cleared his throat behind him and lifted the great oaken bolt from across his entryway. He bowed low, bending at his waist so his great heavy tusks nearly brushed the floor, and escorted the Asgardian royal family beyond the threshold of his hall, Odin brushing past his eldest son in enraged silence. Balder felt Thor’s hand clap cheerfully across his back, but before he could turn to try and find some shame in his brother’s face, and before their jötunn host had fully closed his door behind them, the young prince felt himself spirited away in the Bifrost’s brilliant rainbow light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are returning to this fic post my 7 month hiatus hello and thank you. 
> 
> Niðavellir - the dwarven realm  
> Niflheimr - the frozen realm  
> Mùspellheimr - the flaming realm  
> Svartalfheimr - former realm of the Dark Elves, ruled by Malekith the Accursed  
> Alfheimr - former realm of the Light Elves, ruled by Queen Aelsa Featherwine of the Faye  
> The United Elven Realms - a joint kingdom formed by the marriage of Malekith and Queen Featherwine  
> Midgard - realm of the humans  
> Helheimr - realm of the dishonorable dead
> 
> the skull lyre played by the troll musician is based on this most likely fabricated “Central African” artifact https://www.metmuseum.org/blogs/of-note/2014/skull-lyre 
> 
> Einmánuður - Old Norse winter month; from mid-March to mid-April  
> Harpa - Old norse summer month; from mid-April to the beginning of June  
> Haustmánður - Old Norse summer month; from late September to late October  
> Gormánður - Old Norse winter month; from late October to late November  
> bilberries - a primarily Eurasian species of low-growing shrubs, bearing fruit somewhat similar to blueberries  
> hawthorne berry - a bright red berry with a sweet/sour taste  
> black pudding - a traditional Nordic desert made primarily of animal blood


	4. Chapter 3 - Thrym's Hall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It was clear to the Laufeyson even now that the stinger of his influence would eat away at the tender flesh of Balder’s heart until it rotted out from under it. Such a waste as to not even be a pity."
> 
> An engagement feast is held on Jötunheimr, at Thrym's hall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thrym's Hall 2: Electric Boogaloo
> 
> Relevant content warnings:
> 
> > allusions to severe physical abuse  
> > general mentions of familial abuse, both physical and emotional

The final winter month, Einmánuður, saw Jötunheimr’s freezing spring crest to a pallid summer, full of cold white sunshine over soft powdery snow banks. Laufey and his sons had traveled from their frozen keep at the rim of the pitch black sea to the edge of the black forests, at the cusp of endless night. Their destination was a lavish estate with a sullied reputation lorded over by a distant relation: Thrym. 

Thrym had cut his teeth on the dark underbelly of the Nine, earning his fortune and his notoriety through illicit dealings and duplicitous affairs. Playing host to the peacekeeping engagement of Asgard and Jötunheimr’s youngest sons was a bid to scrub some of the red from his ledger. 

Loki sat at the head of a wide horseshoe bench set in the center of Thrym’s hall, watching his father and his uncle bicker at its far end, their great heads bent together, their scarlet eyes narrowed in familial contempt. 

The princeling had been glad to hear that his uncle was to host his engagement feast. As a child, Thrym’s hall had been a respite from the grim, weighty silence of his father’s keep. Loki had spent time hiding from Býleistr and Helblindi in his uncle’s well tended gardens, bewitched to bloom in all their splendor even through Jötunheimr’s endless frost. When he had come of age with magicks of his own, the youngest Laufeyson had sought to duplicate Thrym’s efforts and enchant his father’s courtyard to host the same blossoms. The clime was milder by the sea, and he had enjoyed more success than a fledgling mage could expect from such an undertaking. His uncle, pleased by his efforts and impressed at his results, had taken his young relation under his wing. For his enduring affection and mentorship, Loki could forgive Thrym for bearing the marks of a fat, pompous old man with too great an affection for the sound of his own voice. His father could not, and so the two were rarely on speaking terms.

Loki could remember slipping away from the dining hall in which he was now seated to prowl the torchlit labyrinths of the connecting corridors, tapping curiously at heavy doors and, when he was lucky and his forest cat footfalls bore him true through the dark, hearing something tapping back. The emerald torchlight that filled the hall now was the same as it had been then, but the giant that sat bathed in it had changed.

Loki was snapped from his reverie by his elder brothers alighting on the bench at either side of him. Býleistr, at his right, clapped a great clawed hand heavily onto his shoulder.

“Finally little Loki is at the center of attention,” he growled, his voice sharp with scorn.

“Surely your wedding feast shall see this charitable affair grow pale in its splendor,” said Loki evenly, keeping his eyes fixed on the floor in the middle distance, “if it is even remembered so long as to be referenced.”

“Ah, but perhaps I won’t ever be married,” Býleistr snapped back, tightening his grip on Loki’s shoulder to drag his claws against his skin “not now that little Loki has resolved our political battles for the next age.”

“Then I trust I have your thanks for relieving you of your courtly duties,” said Loki.

Helblindi interrupted in a voice that broke like spit freezing in mid-air, “At least Loki isn’t wasted on an eligible giant!”

“I leave it to your majesties to wade through our gene pool at your leisure.”

Helblindi snarled and raised a hand to strike Loki across the face, but Býleistr — quick as a flash — reached behind the young prince to catch their brother’s arm in mid air. He held it high above Helblindi’s head, twisting it painfully at the shoulder. Býleistr’s grip on Loki had been cruel, but the force with which he held Helblindi was crueler.

“Let him have his japes, Helblindi,” Býleistr said over his brother’s mewls, “he’ll soon be taught better.”

“Ahhh,” hissed Helblindi, “the thunderer….” His voice, high, whining, and smug, did not match the pained expression contorting his broad face. Býleistr ignored his younger brother’s wriggles against his grip and traced his free hand along Loki’s shoulder, drawing a claw along a pale white line of scar tissue that ran over its curve.

“Aye,” he said softly, “The Thunderer.”

“Surely his brotherly affection could not hope to outmatch yours,” said Loki calmly.

“Don’t rely on your silver tongues, little Loki, lest you be forced to use them in his service.”

“He and the whoreson war god blackened the snow drifts with our blood,” said Helblindi, his mouth twisting around his words in pain as his shoulder went numb from the angle at which his arm was being wrenched above his head “they’ll do the same to Asgard’s throne room once you set foot in it.”

“Why wait to sully their shining home, Helblindi?” Loki asked, turning for the first time to meet his eyes, speaking over the chimes of the heavy gold chains that decorated his great head, “Surely the æsir would rather blacken our uncle’s welcoming hall, where there is jötunn blood to spare.”

“They wouldn’t dare!”

“Then they wouldn’t dare to do so at court. I carry the same protections in this hall as I will in theirs.”

“…spells?” Helblindi guessed, his brows knitted together in deep thought.

“Intrajudiciary politics,” said Loki flatly.

Before the youngest Laufeyson could address the confounded expression on his middle brother’s face, their father’s voice rang out from the far end of the hall. 

“Býleistr,” King Laufey barked, “unhand him.”

Býleistr did, Helblindi collapsing in a heap over the table before him to nurse his offended limb. Loki saw the opportunity to take his leave, and, swinging his legs delicately over the bench, crossed the length of the hall to meet his uncle. Thrym, having concluded his terse business with Laufey, was busy fussing with his gleaming tusk ornaments in a polished glass.

“Did they mark you, boy?” Thrym asked matter of factly without turning to check for himself.

“Even Býleistr isn’t fool enough to strike me so soon before our guests are to arrive,” said Loki, combing a strand of his dark hair through his fingers, “I imagine they’ll have something planned for me once they leave.

Thrym turned, oblivious or uninterested in what physical punishment awaited his best liked nephew after the festivities. “You look beautiful,” he said cheerfully.

“As do you,” said Loki with an inclination of his head. He turned back to see his brothers had taken their place at the rightmost end of the horseshoe shaped table’s head. Their father sat nearest to its center seat with a space saved to his right for his youngest. King Laufey’s brooding eyes met Loki’s for a moment before turning away.

“Then we shall be quite the sight for our honored guests! And we shall spy their faces falling as they look upon our kin,” Thrym crooned, snaking a hand around Loki’s shoulders and leading him to the entrance hall before a set of heavy oaken doors.

Loki drew a deep steadying breath as he prepared himself to weave flatteries for the new arrivals. As they poured in, it became clear to the young prince that he was tasked to spin air into gold. The gathered parties were hardly the finest that the nine realms had to offer, certainly not with two realms wholly declining the invitation. These were a collection of doormen and second cousins that the ruling courts could not be pressed to miss. The engagement of two youngest sons was sent the dregs of what the realms could spare, but Loki had honeyed words and false laurels to lay before them all.

First to arrive were Brokkr and Sindri, red haired blacksmith brothers from the dwarven realm of Niðavellir. They stood wrapped in heavy furs to guard against the cold, only their gleaming eyes and generous mustaches visible from between them. Drawn to their full heights they reached just past Loki’s navel.

Then, first visible from over the horizon line, came twin Pit Spiders from the frozen realm of Niflheimr. Their great black bodies and sixteen spindly legs maneuvered with care to fit through Thrym’s entrance hall, sized for two jötunn to walk abreast. They bowed low before attempting to enter, their bodies sinking towards the snow, sixteen shining eyes reflecting the gold adornments of the giants that welcomed them.

Then, crackling, roaring, and burning towards the heavens, came two flaming Múspellsmegir, wards of Surtur’s flaming realm. Their faceless, molten constitutions ran past their hosts and streamed into the dining hall, leaving only echoing cackles and floating cinders in their wake.

Having satisfied their duties in welcoming their motley band of merry guests, Thrym and Loki turned back towards the dining hall to wait for Asgard’s fashionably late arrival. Loki drifted towards his place on the righthand side of the table, chatting politely with the dwarves, spiders, and various servingmen he passed. But his churning mind whirled elsewhere, and as he took his place at his father’s side, it turned to thoughts of his intended.Balder the Brave, beloved by all creation. 

Some weeks past, he had written Loki a letter, his shaky hand blazed across a length of vellum, delivered to the jötunn prince in his enchanted garden by one of the Allfather’s damnable twin birds. He could still remember it line for line.

_Dear Loki,_ the note began, its recipient’s lip curling up from the unearned familiarity, _I take great joy in the news of our marriage._ Well that made one of them.

_It is my hope that the peace between our realms will far outlive even the children of our children’s children._ Surely just a pretty turn of phrase, but Loki had felt his stomach turn sour at the thought of bearing æsir brats. He had comforted himself with the thought that this was to be a firmly barren arrangement, meant to unite but certainly not to continue the family line. Balder the Overly Brazen seemed to have other plans.

_I await our meeting with great anticipation, and wish to make you happy from this day onwards to eternity._ How quaint. 

_Our duty shall be not only to our realms, but to each other. Signed with the greatest of affection, Balder the Brave, son of Odin and the realm eternal._ Loki seethed. His duty had always been only to himself, and so it would remain. Regardless of how Jötunheimr’s court could benefit from his dealings they were his, and his alone. He hated this letter so much he thought to eat it. Consume it, digest it, and shit it out in some black forgotten corner of the barren woods for lesser creatures to dig through. He very nearly did, bringing it to his open lips and towards his needle teeth to snuff the wretched thing from existence. But at the last moment he lowered his hand and thought better of it. The saccharine insincerity would only lead to canker-bitten insides. 

The beady eyed unblinking bird that brought its master’s missive sat waiting on the same flowering bough it had landed on. Loki shooed it away with a black taloned hand. He had wandered through his garden well into the night, seeking to indulge the foul humor that had beset him. The sun rose late in Góa, and by the time its first pale and feeble rays touched the peaks of the black mountains, his mind had found some ease. He had retired to his chamber and penned a letter in appropriate courtly tones, his siren feather quill looping long, steady strokes to elegantly echo Balder’s hopes of devotion and domesticity. He had burned that letter. 

For a time the æsir prince’s message went unanswered. Then one frigid afternoon, when the pallid light of midwinter fell over King Laufey’s barren grounds, the princeling had a thought. He wandered down a black untended path and found a clump of mistletoe clinging to a long dead tree, untouched by the merciless frost. Loki plucked a sprig and held it to his mouth, so close that as he whispered, his thin scarred lips brushed its long round leaves in a shower of butterfly kisses. From the kitchens he stole a whortleberry branch, its shinning black berries neatly echoing the mistletoe’s white fruit. With a wave of his jeweled hands and a sculpting of his breath, he had pulled a magpie from the air, dewey with melting frost. He conjured a ribbon to bind his gift and entrusted it to its carrier. 

She had far to travel. Over the tundra, past the black forests and the windswept steppe, and past other realms besides before she reached the gilded city. For all the waiting the Odinson would have to do for his response, Loki very much hoped he found it lacking.

He had spent the following weeks doing his utmost to push his intended from his mind, while his intended seemed to do everything in his power to affix himself there. There hadn’t been further courier ravens, thank the Norns, but Balder’s æsir influence seemed to rear its bothersome horned head at every turn. Most prominently in the goblin controlled mountain pass of Niðavellir, where Loki had arrived to find æsir muscle had already beat out his jötunn wit. Whether their engagement had truly emboldened Balder in his diplomatic excursions or if Loki was simply noticing it more now that he had reason to detest it, the young prince could not say. Regardless, this public announcement was poised to curtail that particular trend. The rumors had already started, thanks in large part to Loki having started them. Asgard’s throne falls to jötunn influence! Allfather leads his youngest son to slaughter! Whatever uncertainty his allies had felt at his engagement, tales of an ill wind blowing in the æsir’s direction had done as much to soothe their worries as Loki’s sharp toothed, black gummed smile.

To his left, Loki’s older brothers murmured about a lack of ale, and to his right his father was stoney faced and silent. On either side of the U-shaped table, the invited guests sat in tense, heavy silence, the enchanted emerald torchlight flooding the hall with an unsettling gloom. Loki sat admiring his well groomed nail beds, restraining himself lest he begin to purr.

The oaken doors to Thrym’s keep swung open once again, and over the howl of the late winter wind the gathered parties could hear their host welcoming the royal family of Asgard to his hall. All eyes turned towards the entrance in anticipation.

Thrym was first to enter and first to speak, his booming voice filling the hall like a peal of thunder as he stepped through the archway, “We bid welcome to the realm of Vanaheimr,” he boomed, “and to the Allfather of the realm eternal that rules above us all.”

Odin followed close behind, his bearskin cloak open across his chest, his twin ravens flying off from his armored shoulders to hide among the rafters. Beside him was the lovely Lady Freya of Vanaheimr, Allmother of all nine realms, followed by her two sons. Balder the Brave, beloved by all creation, entered the hall with his horned helm tucked beneath his arm, his short cropped auburn hair sticking out in a dozen different directions. Loki could see the softness of his tender heart outlined on his provincially beautiful face. It disgusted him.

Just behind him was the Thunderer, heritor to all nine realms, protector of Asgard and soon to be lord of all creation. He stood half a head taller than Balder, clad in a floor length cloak of crimson dragonhide. His long blond hair was pulled back from his handsome face in a loose braid. His blue eyes lit his face with a roguish mischief, from the arch of his strawberry blonde brow to the ruddy stubble across his jaw. He was resplendent. For a moment Loki felt himself possessed. He thought of the shining net of influence they could cast across the nine. With his cunning to match the óss’ brawn, the realms could be their playthings. They could form a new beginning, forged in thunder and in witchcraft, and purged in Helfire. One lightning strike to burn clean the realms of their fathers’ influence and an eternity black as pitch in which to sow a brand new history. An end to all creation and a screaming rise to something greater; something new.

Loki’s brief jaunt of madness was interrupted by black eyed Tyr, trailing in behind his brothers with his cold hard stare fixed on the youngest Laufeyson. Scrambling to pull his expression back together, Loki cast his great red eyes down.

Following Thrym’s lead, the royal family of Asgard took their places on the lefthand side of the table’s head, the bastard war god relegated to a seat beside the Pit Spiders. They did so in silence, as not a word had been spoken nor a breath drawn since Thrym had made his entrance. Cheerfully slamming a hand across his youngest nephew’s shoulders, the old jötunn happily took up the task of breaking the silence that had stretched across his table.

“Put your silver tongues to work, boy,” he bellowed, “I would have you spin a yarn to open this feast.”

Loki smiled graciously, rising from his seat and trying to regain the breath that had been knocked out of him.

“You honor me, uncle,” he said, before casting his gaze out to the rest of the hall, “as do you all, denizens from across the Nine, come to share in the joy and the joining of our two families; may they be joined as one to usher in a peace everlasting, that it may outlive even the children of our children’s children.”

From the corner of his eye, Loki watched as Balder’s breath hitched and his face began to glow. Perfect. He turned to his betrothed and gave a subtle inclination of his great ornamented head, inviting him to speak. Balder rose from the bench hastily, splaying his fingers before him as if to bear his weight.

“May our duties be not only to our realms, but to each other,” he announced. How inventive. So a hand’s length of vellum had carried all his courtly phrases with it. Stunning.

Thrym brought his hands together in approval and stood from his center seat.

“Fine words from our fair princes,” he boomed, “and I shall venture to extend my own thanks to my honored guests. Less eloquent than my nephew’s, I am certain, but no less sincere.”

Loki settled his pointed chin into his hand and watched his uncle orate, lying as he breathed about the accomplishments and accolades of the gathered parties. An easy smile stretched over Loki’s thin lips as Thrym droned on. As he listened to his uncle speak — first about the gathered guests, then about the royal family of Asgard and, _ooh,_ the accomplishments of Lady Freya’s _three_ children, and finally about his own royal family — Loki was keenly aware of the Odinsons’ eyes on him. Balder’s stare was clingy and cloying; he could feel it tracing the petals of his belladonna engagement wreathe through his hair and skittering away from his eyes lest it be caught. The Thunderer’s gaze was weighty, like a gathering storm. Despite himself, Loki could feel it bearing down into the center of his chest, tempting him to turn towards its source and be blinded by his light.

Blessedly, Thrym concluded his speech, bending at the waist in a bow that took his nose nearly to the surface of his table. He stood swiftly, without pausing for applause, and clapped twice, signaling the many servingmen of his hall to pour in from the adjacent corridors and pile the center table with a feast under which it threatened to break. In addition to the delicacies procured by their host, the United Elven Realms had sent a rich blood pudding to be displayed in their stead, and the Lady Freya, as representative of Vanaheimr, had supplied barrels of the finest honey wine in all the nine. As the embarrassment of riches poured in, a band began to play a jaunty tune, and in the presence of meat, mead, and melodies, the dining hall underwent a thaw.

Loki ate sparingly and sipped on barley wine, keeping his gold rimmed eyes cast down and his ear pricked. He noted that Thrym was sat next to his dwarven guests, gesticulated wildly. Their expressions seemed to suggest that he was commissioning a large and extravagant work. Kings Laufey and Odin sat together on the right side of the table, their heads inclined together, their lips brushing the silver rims of their chalices as they whispered and the color began to rise in their cheeks. The flaming Múspellsmegir chatted between themselves, the troll and goblin musicians livened the air, and even the Pit Spiders had the ear of the fair Lady Freya, who leaned towards them as if they were old friends. 

Loki’s eye drifted again to Balder, who sat awkwardly beside his elder brother, periodically running a nervous hand through his hair. The Laufeyson had misjudged his letter. It had not been a concerted effort to play the perfect diplomat, painting a portrait of earnest desire and proper courtship. Far worse, it had been an expression of earnest desire and want for proper courtship. Loki had misjudged the Odinson to be a power hungry tyrant like his father, sitting on a gilded throne suspended on a web of lies. He was not. Instead he was weak, he was kind, and Loki found that his patience for the soft hearted prince had already run dry. It was clear to the Laufeyson even now that the stinger of his influence would eat away at the tender flesh of Balder’s heart until it rotted out from under it. Such a waste as to not even be a pity.

Loki blinked his gold rimmed eyes clear of their wolfish expression. It wouldn’t do well to have Balder’s prying eyes alight on his features cast in cruelty.

The evening went on pleasantly enough, the varied guests consorting between themselves and their hosts with increasing gaiety. Soon the dancing emerald torchlight and the ever flowing barley wine made Loki’s great jeweled head spin. Rising from his seat at the table with the well practiced grace of a young giant who had spent his nights at indecorous courts across the nine, Loki padded off to an adjacent corridor to shake the dancing shadows from his eyes. Brushing politely past a serving girl with a heavily laden tray, turning right, then left at the first set of double doors, he came upon a familiar enclave that had served as his favorite hiding spot as a young giant.

The wall of the corridor bowed outwards and gave way to a little alcove, a stone bench carved into its curve and lined with beautifully embroidered cushions. Six fine corinthian columns stretched floor to ceiling and blossomed into exotic stone flowers at their capitals. It looked like a beautiful open air balcony on which to spend a summer afternoon; except the portion of it clearly intended to open into the temperate, perfumed air was filled by cold grey stone.

It was an abandoned bit of half magic, no doubt a pet project to bring a balmy slice of Asgard, Vanaheimr, or Midgard to Jötunheimr’s frozen forests. Loki sank down onto the bench, pressing his back against the wall and stretching his legs out in front of him. The melodious chimes of his heavy gold jewelry echoed off the enclosed space like frozen rain. No sooner had his gold rimmed eyes shut for a moment’s rest than they snapped open again at the sound of approaching footsteps.

Loki stood quickly, the pleasant haze of barley wine evaporating from his mind. The footsteps carried a voice with them, thick with mead, butchering an æsir drinking song. Loki felt his lip curl up over his needle teeth as he thought very pointedly about how unarmed he was and how enclosed the space. The youngest prince of Jötunheimr widened his stance and balled his hands into fists.

Around the bend of the torchlit corridor came the Thunderer, Thor Odinson, an empty drinking horn in his right hand and a twinkle in his bright blue eyes. He had shed his dragonhide cloak and courtly armor to wander Thrym’s hall in his leathers. The young óss sang out into the air with no shame or standard for his poor performance, and feigned surprise when he caught Loki’s eye.

“Prince Loki,” he called out warmly, raising his hand to toast in the jötunn’s direction, “how fortunate that we should meet!”

“Yes,” said Loki, rising with grace from his defensive crouch, “had fortune played any part in our meeting I would be sure to thank it.”

Thor chuckled so good naturedly it made Loki’s teeth rattle.

“Do you make it a habit, Odinson, to stalk strangers through the night?” Loki snapped, “drunk?” he added sharply.

“I would never dream of it,” said Thor, “When the strangers are drunk I have an ungallant advantage.”

He waggled his blonde eyebrows and grinned in a manner Loki could _only_ describe as dazzling, though he did try desperately to find another adjective.

“And I see no strangers here besides,” he continued, advancing towards Loki, close enough now that the jötunn prince could see the flush of his cheeks creeping over his spattering of pale freckles, “as we are to be brothers, you and I.”

Loki lowered his eyes demurely. Half to play the coquette, half to free himself from the snare of Thor’s shining eyes. The Thunderer sat heavily on the stone bench, brushing his golden hair away from his fair face and tossing his empty drinking horn aside. 

In a fluid motion, Loki stepped forward and lowered himself to sit at Thor’s side, his gold adornments chiming as he did so.

“Then we shall sow brotherly love between ourselves,” he said with a sinister smile, the words hissing past his teeth. The grin that Thor flashed back at him, bright though it was and brimming with royal showmanship, had a wicked edge to it.

“Perhaps that’s the more fertile ground to till,” Loki continued, his serpentine eyes tracing a path from the ruddy stubble on Thor’s chin down the muscles of his neck and on to his suntanned chest, his left clavicle just visible beneath his wide collar, “Fair Balder is beloved by all creation, there seems little room left for my affections.”

“You produce such dour predictions,” said Thor with a crinkle of his nose, “our dear Balder is beloved by all creation because he has the heart to love it in return. I’m sure Asgard’s halls will soon ring with the patter of tiny feet.”

Loki, rather involuntarily, let out an irritated growl. This, maddeningly, made Thor laugh.

“Did the Allfather plan that I should bear the æsir line?” he hissed.

“If he planned otherwise he has yet to inform Balder,” Thor said, “Is that a customary arrangement to make in Jötunheimr?” He said with a tilt of his head. Before Loki could open his mouth to speak, Thor rallied with another inquiry.

“And if I were to marry you, witch, who of us would bear our children?” he asked, leaning so far towards Loki that he had to brace a hand against the bench to bear his shifting weight.

“Surely you’ve only the capacity to sire children, Thunderer,” said Loki, taken aback by the question. He didn’t move back from Thor’s advance. So close was the Giant Slayer now, that his breath moved the ornaments in Loki’s plaited hair to chime.

“Aye, speak ye true,” said Thor cheerfully, “But what of you, serpent-tongue? Possess you such magicks as to carry an heir to Asgard?”

“No heir of mine would sit the throne of Asgard, thunder god,” said Loki, flicking his black tongues out briefly over his lips, “But yes I possess the… capacity to carry my own children.” He chose the word carefully, but Thor’s brows furrowed regardless. Loki sighed and spun a ring around his little finger, casting his eyes down as he explained. He’d hardly had enough wine to play teacher, but the young prince judged it best to indulge the heir apparent while he was in his cups.

“The throne of Jotunheimr is unlike that of Asgard. Our birthrights are passed down along our birthing lines,” said Loki patiently, “Ymir carried forth Laufey and his kin to our frozen shores on a tide of his spilled blood. Laufey brought his successor to those same shores on a tide of his own making.”

“Then King Laufey is your mother,” said Thor, who appeared to be thinking very hard.

“No,” said Loki politely.

“Did your mother not die in birthing you?” Thor asked. Loki heard his teeth click together sharply at the end of his question, as though he’d tried and failed to close his mouth before he’d gotten all the way through it.

“As I was brought into the world I did take Farbauti out of it,” Loki replied, a peaceful smile curling up the corners of his thin lips, “although to hear some tell of it, I was born clutching her heart impaled on a poisoned blade, or else strung through my sharpened teeth.”

A look passed over Thor’s flushed face to suggest that had heard both those stories, and many others, but that he had decided not to share them. Instead he opened his mouth and thought for a moment before shutting it again. There was no tactful way to ask his question. 

Loki came to his aid.

“Laufey carried Byleistr, third of his line and rightful heir to Jotunheimr. Helblindi and I were of no consequence, the matter of primogeniture having already been settled. Were you seeking to produce an heir to lord over a united kingdom of gold and frost,” Loki lifted his eyes to meet Thor’s, peering at him slyly from beneath his dark lashes, “you would be speaking to my brother.”

“And perhaps you should be, thunderer,” he continued, tilting his head and letting the gold plaited into his hair chime through the moment of silence, “as we have made clear that I am promised to yours.”

“Surely I could not be faulted for wanting to know more of the line into which my youngest brother is to marry,” said Thor innocently. Loki could see his blue eyes tracing his scarred lips. Sitting at kissing distance, he was well poised to strike.

“And what am I to learn of yours, Thor?” Loki purred, testing his name on the tips of his tongues pressed against the backs of his teeth, “what can you tell me of the throne of Asgard?”

“That a halfling bastard may never hope to rest his arse on it.”

The young princes’ heads snapped around to the darkened end of the hall before them, panic rising momentarily in Loki’s throat. But it was only Tyr, dark of eye and ill of humor. He, too, carried his emptied drinking horn in his right hand. What an irritating and boorish æsir habit…

The godling was still slumped over on the bench, his fingertips still perilously close to Loki’s knee. The blush spread across his beautiful face was strong even in the emerald torchlight, but the mischief in his eyes had sputtered out. A moment of unease stretched through the air like a length of wire pulling taut.

“Any children of mine, Lord Tyr,” quipped Loki brightly, “shall follow your perfectly set example of never trying to.”

Thor laughed. Tyr did not.

“Come back into the firelight of the feasting hall that I may better note your influence on my younger brother,” he said darkly, “and that I may suffer none such magicks to take root in the minds of my youngest.”

Loki rose from his seat and gave a flourishing bow and a saccharine, black gummed smile. To be ordered around in his family home by a bastard halfing war god was certainly the right feather of indignity in the cap of this farcical engagement feast. He left with a toss of his raven hair, showering the floor behind him with violet petals of belladonna. As he made his way back down the winding corridors towards the gathered parties, he heard the æsir shouting behind him. Their words were indistinct, but “pit-viper” was among them.

Wandering back toward the dining hall at a leisurely pace, Loki traced a claw tipped finger along the corridor’s stone wall. He soothed his injured pride with the thought that it would have been time to return anyway, lest anyone note his absence. But picking at the wound were thoughts of the Thunderer’s laughter; bold, bright, and unashamed, bursting through the frozen labyrinths of Thrym’s keep like a summer storm. His breath had been sour from honey wine and hot over Loki’s face, pouring from his mouth which he had brought towards Loki’s with an incorrigible impropriety unseen even in subterranean goblin courts. The young prince couldn’t help but dwell on how Thor’s well muscled frame had melted into the stone beneath him, almost as if his limbs were tired from carrying the radiance of his smile. And he certainly couldn’t have _imagined_ the static that had arced across the nearly non-existant distance between Thor’s hanging fingertips and his bent knee. Or how the heavens seemed to part when their eyes met, to unleash a cleansing rain across the nine and draw a flood to fill every pit and eclipse every parapet.

Loki shook his head free of such fancies. A haze of enchanted torchlight and barley wine had shrouded his better judgement once again. The troll musicians must have sung him quite insane. This was madness and nonsense from which he’d force himself free. He lowered himself to his place at Thrym’s table resolutely, catching Balder’s guileless eye. He winked, flashing a razor edged smile, and watched the prince’s cheeks flush scarlet and his jaw go slack. Loki sat prettily, tracing a wet finger over the silver rim of his chalice and looking pointedly away from his betrothed, ensnared in conversation by his dear, auspicious uncle. It wasn’t long before Balder disentangled himself, and came to Loki’s elbow shyly.

With an uncertain clearing of his constricted throat, Balder spoke his first words to the withdrawn Laufeyson, “May I refill that for you?”

Loki smiled, and found himself with honeyed words to spare. “You would do me an honor, Odinson,” he purred, sliding his empty glass towards the óss. “Quite the guest list we’ve managed to attract,” he said snidely, watching Balder’s hands shake.

“Not the finest of the nine,” he said, placing the flagon of wine back onto the table with a hearty laugh, “but surely a reflection of our birthrights.”

“Does my lord Balder find his lacking?” asked Loki sharply, balancing the tips of his tongues between his teeth.

“He finds it happy among present company,” Balder parried. So there was his ambassadorial repertoire at last. Loki could have smiled, had he not been quick to couch his wit, “And I meant only that the realms sent a reflection of what they thought to gain.

Loki growled in annoyance, “What a shrewd assessment of our engagement, Odinson.”

“Shrewd, but not unkind,” Balder assured, “Asgard has, after all, sent all that it has.”

Yes, thought Loki, feeling that same bothersome coil in his chest that had tightened at the Thunderer’s attentions, and it has saddled me with the chaff.

Before his rumination could curdle to self pity, the two elder princes of Jötunheimr appeared on either side of the betrothed, Býleistr curling a hand across Balder’s broad shoulders as easily as he had surrounded Loki’s earlier in the evening. His black talons sat along his right arm, their knifepoint tips sinking into the prince’s chainmail.

“You do us an honor with your patronage, lord Balder,” he hissed, his voice thick with scorn.

“It is you who honor me with yours,” said Balder steadily. The uncertain tremble of infatuation had fallen from his voice and was replaced with sterile diplomacy, “allow me to pour my brothers some wine.”

“So we are _brothers_ , then,” Býleistr purred, his gold rimmed eyes sparking cruelly, “I had grown so used to being fodder for the Asgardian hordes. To meet an óss who caters to the game with which he stocks his woods is a rare honor.”

“Could we expect the same kindness from lord Thor?” Helblindi grunted from over Loki’s shoulder, with all the subtlety of a battle axe to the head. The name again caught Loki off balance.

“We are all of us here to atone for the blood spilled between us,” said Balder, navigating past the accusation with the expert ease of royal entitlement, “had my brothers and I not waged our father’s war against you we would not be here to remedy it. Our blood was spilled across Jötunheimr and now our bloodlines will begin their joining, that the rift between our peoples can be mended.”

And the realms had seen fit to deem _him_ the Lie Smith, thought Loki as sour rage curled from his gut and made his tongues itch with rebuttals. The Thousand Year War, as it was being called even now, in the infancy of its resolution, hadn’t been a war at all. There had not been strategy, nor treaty, nor parlay. There had been slaughter. Merciless and unrelenting. Stretching over a thousand years across a land a thousand thousand miles away from the goat’s milk and honeyed wine fed to Asgard’s children off finely smithed silver. This was not an engagement but a blood sacrifice, an underfed lamb at the feet of a jealous god, its meat bitter from a life moreso.

“By the shining threads, you even _sound_ like one another,” Býleistr spat.

“We revel in your approval, dear brother,” said Loki coldly. Freeing himself from Helblindi’s grip on his shoulders, Loki reached for the flagon of wine Balder had set between them. As he busied himself refilling the chalices around him, his attention was caught by scuffle at the far end of the table. Dark eyed Tyr had his younger brother firmly by the back of the neck, and was forcing him bodily back into his seat. 

“If you wish your concerns addressed by those you raise them against,” Loki said, watching Thor brush a strand of hair from his eyes with the back of his hand, “I believe you’ll now have your chance.”

Helblindi and Býleistr whipped their great horned heads around in fear as Loki watched the Thunderer toss a jovial wink in Balder’s direction. He was exaggerating his drunkenness, that the Laufeyson could tell. When they’d spoken his limbs had been heavy but not ungainly, and his tongue had been sharp even through his foolishness. Thor caught his eye and for half a heartbeat’s moment, he dropped the act, his lips pulling into a languid, knowing smile below his wicked eyes. Loki cast his eyes from his flushed and handsome face to the mortified expression of his betrothed at his side, preoccupied with the social calamity of his brother’s intemperance. His thin lips parted, but his retort was pushed back behind his needle teeth by Thrym’s thunderous baritone swelling through the hall, silencing the merry band and the pleasant chatter therein.

“Wonderful! The night grows dark around us, fair friends,” he boomed, “Let us gather to present our young princes with their engagement gifts.”

_Engagement gifts?_ Loki furrowed his brows, surely the presence of the assembled parties had been the only things the realms had spared for the occasion. Curiosity etched across his face, Loki let himself be lead with Balder to the center of the table. Thrym squeezed their hands together before them and stood back as the heavy-laden table at the hall’s center was magicked away to make room for his guests to present their gifts. Balder’s hand was warm against his, and Loki felt him thread their fingers together as Thrym continued his pronouncement.

“Thanks are due to the United Elven realms, whose blood pudding graced our table,” Well it had certainly been a presence at the table but to say it _graced_ — “and to the sun soaked realm of Vanaheimr whose fine mead filled our drinking horns this night.” And made quite the spectacle of Asgard’s royal family…

“But we have more gifts to bestow on our young princes before this night is through. From the rocky realm of Niðavellir, I am honored to present Brokkr and Sindri.”

The two dwarves had shed their warm winter furs and stepped forward, looking decidedly less like the two piles of tightly wound pelts that had first arrived. Brokkr, with a finely oiled red beard and a gleaming bald head, came forward with a shining boar. Each of the innumerable golden bristles on its great body shone like starlight. Its name was Gullinbursti, and it was to be Balder’s companion through the darkest night, the deepest cavern, or the blackest sea, to carry him steadfast through water or through air.

Balder stammered through his thanks, taken aback by the extravagance of the creature before him. Loki failed to suppress a chuckle, but blunted its edge with a wink.

“This, Prince Loki,” announced Sindri “we call Draupnir.” He held a gold ring in both hands and raised it to the level of his eyes, “From this ring, on every ninth night from this night, eight new gold rings of equal weight and splendor will emerge.”

Loki was spellbound. He felt his claw tipped fingers itch with the desire to hold it, to slip it onto his arm and watch it birth new treasures for him again and again.

“You honor me greatly,” he said breathlessly as Sindri placed his gift before him, “your craftsmanship is unparalleled.”

Next to present their gifts were the Pit Spiders of Niflheimr, who arranged their great mass of hairy black limbs carefully to fit between the horseshoe shaped bench. The first, indistinguishable to Loki from his twin, spoke in a phantom voice that seemed to rise from the center of its many-eyed head.

“Sweet prince,” it said, extending a leg forward, “it would honor us, were you to wear this veil at your hand tying. We have woven it in spider silk, a treasure to us more precious than gold.”

Comparison noted, thought Loki, his eyes tracing the shapeless, shifting, gossamer, thing draped over the spider’s limb. It was a bridal veil, its shimmering moonlit threads brought together in a witching weft lighter than air and paler than mist. Loki forced his eyes away from the effervescent treasure before him to meet all eight of its artist’s.

“Its beauty is unmatched,” he said, lending weight to every word, “and it would be my honor to wear it.”

The spider bowed low, and shuffled back to make room for its brother, who presented Lord Balder with a blade forged of tempered spider’s silk. 

The flaming Múspellsmegir, having brought nothing but their hollow bellies, and having happily left those behind, fled cackling from the hall without a parting word. Having presented their treasures, the other guests also took their leave. Only the two royal families remained, and on the wings of Thrym’s declaration of the lateness of the hour, they made their way to the threshold of his hall. Freyja and her sons stood by the great oaken doors, tying their cloaks back around their necks in preparation to meet the night’s cruel chill. Thrym fussed, his great head bobbing through the air as he took bow after flatterer’s bow. 

Býleistr and Helblindi sulked behind their father, who stood abreast with the Borson, his cold red eyes studying the Thunderer, the Beloved, and the bastard son in turn. They alighted on Loki for a moment, stood between the gathered families, his great jeweled head turned over his shoulder. Before he could search his father’s face, the Allfather’s voice rang out over the crackle of enchanted flame and the polite snuffling of Balder’s gifted beast.

“Your courtship is to last through the summer months,” Odin announced.

“You will be welcomed at my court through Haustmánður, prince,” King Laufey followed icily. 

“It would be my honor to attend,” Balder chirped.

“As it would be my honor to host you,” said Laufey, his words so lacking in sincerity that they may have sucked some away from the heart of the young prince he spoke them to, like a swarm of black flies.

“And it will be _your_ honor to be welcomed at my court, in the realm eternal, through Gormánður,” Odin barked at Loki, “you are to be wed at the equinox.”

With a flourish of his adorned claws, Loki bent into a bow so deep his raven hair brushed the floor, the movement setting free a shower of belladonna petals. “I’m humbled by such accolades, Allfather,” he said silkily.

He straightened and turned on his heels, prepared to face his betrothed at the entryway. What greeted him instead, was the no longer flushed face of his older brother, his blue eyes alight with wicked starfire. Striking like a viper, he took Loki’s outstretched hand into his own and brought his fingers to his lips in a chaste and lingering kiss.

Loki’s scarred mouth — startled out of the charlatan’s grin it had been pulled into — fell open, the sharp tips of his two black tongues visible just beyond his needle teeth. 

When, finally, a thousand years after he had first touched his skin to Loki’s, Thor lifted his head, the tension in the room was palpable. It stretched like catgut through the air, pulled taught and near to bursting, running through the faltering hearts of the gathered parties.

“May the Norns weave kindly until our threads entwine again, brother,” Thor said softly, the ruddy stubble on his chin brushing over Loki’s fingers, his hand still propping them up near his mouth.

Loki felt his breath rattle over his teeth and a flame rise in his chest. For a moment he felt that he, in all his glittering splendor, might fall freely through the hole that had opened up around and below him. The only thing keeping him afloat in the great black yawning void of the present moment was one maddeningly warm æsir hand pressed tightly against his palm. Thor held his gaze from beneath his bright blonde lashes, his blue eyes underscored by a damnable smile. From deep in his churning black guts the youngest prince of Jötunheimr felt a strange and particular calling arise. A column of flame piercing through black and endless night. A vision of terror and damnation. Fingernails of the unhappy dead at his back and raked across his belly. A world ending burn seared into his impish face. And Thor’s warm, calloused fingers supporting his palm, twisted into his hair, wrapped around his neck and sliding down his back. The feeling lasted a moment, only as long as it took for the giant slayer to straighten his back and release Loki’s hand, but that was enough.

“May their stitches be swift,” the Laufeyson managed through his collapsing throat. He held the thunderer’s gaze, not daring to meet his family’s eyes behind him, nor to see what rage had bloomed in the Allfather’s stormy grey eye. Balder said something over his shoulder. It blended in with the patient snuffles of his shining golden boar. It mattered as much.

Thrym, bowing as low as an aged jötunn’s knees would allow, escorted Asgard’s royal family beyond the threshold of his hall and closed the door against the howling wind. Loki watched them go through a dreamlike haze. He noted Odin’s grip on Freya’s arm, Tyr’s hands balled into white-knuckled fists at his side, and Thor’s hand clasped cheerfully against Balder’s broad back, their heads inclined towards one another in what looked like lively conversation.

Loki caught the flash of blinding light as the Bifrost swallowed them up just as Thrym closed his heavy oaken doors against the howling wind. Slowly, his back to his father and his elder brothers, his red eyes turned towards but not seeing his uncle’s back, Loki raised his left hand to his mouth and pressed his lips against the backs of his fingers. Had he been a creature twice as foolish, he would have sworn he felt a spark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Góa - Old Norse winter month; from mid-February to mid-March  
> Haustmánður - Old Norse summer month; from late September to late October  
> Gormánður - Old Norse winter month; from late October to late November
> 
> Jötnar anatomy — The jötnar, or frost giants, are hermaphroditic, meaning they are all capable of both bearing and siring offspring. In (Midgardian) biology, hermaphrodites are organisms that possess a full or partial set of reproductive organs and produce gametes associated with “male” and “female” sexes. (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermaphrodite) They are not intersex, which is a term used to describe a wide variety of human experiences that can impact both secondary and primary sex characteristics. The word “hermaphrodite”, when applied to people, is not only medically inaccurate, but dismissive, derogatory, and stigmatizing. In this capacity (and in others), frost giants are exactly unlike humans, but quite a bit like snails. 
> 
> I am including this note to explain why I have not and will not use the popular tag “Intersex Jotunns”.


End file.
